Japan
As indicated by a recent survey of 10,650 tobacco farmers, 4,106 of them (or 38.6%) intend to heed the call from Japan Tobacco, Inc. (JTI) to voluntarily cease cultivation of tobacco some time in or after 2012. The call to reduce production was issued as a result of declining tobacco sales, the survey says.
The tobacco growers who expressed willingness to abandon tobacco cultivate a total of 4,412 hectares of land, which amounts to over 30% of the 13,930 hectares currently under cultivation.
JTI offered a compensation of ¥280,000 (US$3,670) per 0.1 hectare to any farmer who would voluntarily stop planting tobacco, as the company is legally bound to purchase all tobacco leaves from Japanese growers.
Some 488 growers from Fukushima prefecture will cease production, as planting of tobacco (and various other crops) has already been suspended in the prefecture because of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, to be followed by 457 in Iwate Prefecture and 435 in Miyazaki Prefecture
