SWABI, Nov 15: Tobacco growers are facing hardship and incurring financial losses because of tobacco companies’ purchase policy. Anjuman-i-Kashthkaran’s provincial general secretary Ismail Jan Khan on Wednesday said that on average, the production cost had been Rs60 per kilogramme this year while they had been offered only Rs53.15 by the tobacco companies. Thus, he maintained, the growers lost Rs7 for every kilogramme of tobacco they prouced.

The growers said that excessive losses had been borne by growers in Mardan, Swabi, Mansehra, Swat, Buner and Charsadda.

He said that the average price at which the tobacco companies had bought their produce in 2005 was about Rs52/kg, adding that the slightly higher purchase price was just a ruse to avoid violating the tobacco marketing law, MLO 487, which stipulated that the average price of tobacco should be more than that of the previous year.

He said that the total production of flue-cured Virginia blend in the current year was 74 million kilogrammes while the demand was 67.92 million kilogrammes. However, he said in 2006 the average yield was 2,100 kilogrammes per hectare while it was between 2,500kg and 2,600kg per hectare.

"The drop in yield spelled another loss which is apart from the Rs7 per kg loss suffered by the growers because of tobacco companies’ purchase policy," he said. "Taken cumulatively, every individual grower suffered losses running into millions of rupees. On top of this, the companies skinned the growers."

He said that growers also had to bear higher input costs in the shape of costlier pesticides and fertilisers, whose prices were increased manifold.

He outlined one of the strategy used by tobacco companies and said that every year, these companies announce their purchase quotas through the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB).

Every year, the tobacco companies carry out crop surveys on their own because of which they know exactly how much crop would be available.