SWABI, June 10: Rejecting the repeated warnings of the tobacco purchasing companies to cultivate the crop according to their needs, growers said they would not slash the crop as the companies are bound to purchase all tobacco products from them.

This was stated by tobacco growers while talking to Dawn here on Thursday about the leaf managers' warnings given to them during various workshops. They also brushed aside the anti- smoking campaigners who demanded the total eradication of the crop on the plea that the consumption of tobacco caused lung cancer and other diseases.

The growers said that neither the companies nor the small cigarette manufacturers intended to close their depots and pressured them with these tactics to buy the crop at low prices.

They said each year the same issue was raised but at the end all the tobacco was purchased by the companies and small manufactures, were in league to exploit them and each year they adopted a new strategy.

The two major tobacco buyers and small cigarette manufacturers had called upon the growers that they should grow vegetables and other crops like sugarcane instead of tobacco.

The leaf managers of the two companies said that they had not only advertised their requirements in newspapers but also issued pamphlets and made announcements on loudspeakers in each tobacco growing locality, saying that even then the growers produced surplus tobacco, they would not buy the produce.

The companies' managements had already informed them about the grim future of tobacco who would ultimately be uprooted from the district and other parts of the province.

However, the provincial general secretary ofAnjuman-i- Kashtkaran, Ismail Jan Khan said that through a well-planned strategy the companies propagated that the future of tobacco, especially White Patta at risk.

Like previous year, a number of non-agreement-holders had opted for tobacco cultivation and ignored the warnings of the companies. The buyers had told them that they were not bound to purchase tobacco from those growers with whom they had not executed agreements.