TOBACCO growers and cigarette firms may find it difficult to transact trade deals for the next crop in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as witnessed in 2010-11, if the markets get flooded with the industry’s non-recommended varieties.

In their effort to discourage cultivation of the non-recommended varieties (NRVs), including Swati, Gul Sherey and Spin Danday, the companies have warned growers that they would not buy the NRVs.

Farmers maintain that the recommended varieties, including Speight G-28, K-399, and RGH-4 are not cost effective.

Therefore, they said, they would continue to grow non-recommended variety, Swati. The saplings from the hybrid seeds they had sown last year, they argued, did not last long and tobacco leaves proved too fragile to sustain the furnace heat.

Similarly, they pointed out that the recommended varieties take too long to grow not leaving growers with sufficient time to sow maize at the end of tobacco harvesting.

The Pakistan Tobacco Board seems to be confronted with the Catch 22 situation. It is supposed to pay attention to cigarette companies when they complain that the NRVs means loss of international orders. Similarly, they can’t leave the growers at the mercy of firms with strong ability to manipulate the market at their (farmers’) cost.

Responsible to maintain a right balance between cigarette companies and tobacco growers’ interests while ensuring stability of markets, the PTB is busy making efforts to promote hybrid tobacco seeds. It has been holding meetings with the two sides to sort out the problem.

However, so far, it has failed to convince the farmers to grow only the recommended varieties. The farming community of the tobacco-growing Mardan, Swabi, and Buner districts is giving a cold shoulder to the PTB.

The growers would soon start sowing seeds for raising tobacco saplings. Cultivation takes place in accordance with the agreements between farmers and the companies who are bound by the Martial Law Ordinance 487 to furnish their requirements by October 21 every year for the ensuing crop season.

The cigarette firms, according to PTB’s secretary Nauman Bashir, require 67 million kilogramme of flue-cured Virginia for the 2011-12 season, one million kilogramme less from previous year when the firms ended up purchasing the non-recommended variety Swati and lost some export orders.

The market is dominated by two major cigarette companies. They are reported to have devised a new strategy for the next cropping season to make sure that farmers who signed agreements with them do not grow NRVs. Their field supervisors would monitor the crop throughout the season keeping a close eye on farmers sowing seeds to raise tobacco nurseries and planting the saplings.

The PTB bosses refuse to accept arguments by farmers against hybrid varieties, saying Swati variety has deteriorated for being grown for the past 30 years. The PTB is in the process of introducing early-maturing hybrid seeds from Profigen, a Brazilian tobacco company.

According to the PTB secretary, 15 varieties have been imported and would be introduced in a couple of years after conducting tests.

Tobacco growers, at their end, feel that they cannot afford to leave the time-tested varieties and take to hybrid seeds. “We can’t afford to switch over to new varieties as part of a test, we need a cost-effective variety, something that does not require too much water, that gets mature early and that (tobacco leave) is strong enough to sustain the furnace heat,” said Qamar Zaman, president of Anjuman-i-Kashtkaran, tehsil Takht Bhaee, Mardan district.

The situation, some say, is the making of the cigarette companies’ since they promoted and bought NRVs last year from the market.

Against a total demand for 70 million, the crop yield was at 85 million kilogrammes. The companies purchased even the surplus tobacco from growers, including NRVs.

Based on their last year’s experience, the farmers say cigarette firms are trying to take advantage of their strong position by teaming up with the PTB.

“The Board never listens to farmers’ genuine representatives and takes important decisions without taking us on board,” says Khalid Khan, president, Kisan Board, Swabi – a view rejected by the PTB secretary.

The losses suffered by sugarcane growers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because of drop in cane prices is expected to push a large number of farmers to sow tobacco. It would create a space for cigarette companies to manipulate the market in the upcoming season.