INDIA
The cash crop planted in Belagavi this year has reduced to 5,085 hectares, sown by around 5,100 farmers. Growers attribute this to continuing restrictions on trade and use of tobacco products as well as reducing stocks of firewood for processing and vagaries of monsoon.
Tobacco cultivation in the region has been falling since 2010, but 2017 has been the worst. In 2010-2011, a total of 17,193 farmers grew tobacco on 13,755 hectares of land in Nippani and Chikkodi taluks and surrounding areas. During these seven years, tobacco cultivation has increased only twice. In 2012-13, it was sown on 13,779 hectares, by 17,223 farmers and in 2016-17, it was sown on 13,500 hectares, by 13,262 farmers. In all other years, cultivation has been dropping. The worst fall, however, has been in the current season with the acreage shrinking by over 60%, say officials.
However, the zilla panchayat (district council) sees this as an opportunity to phase out tobacco cultivation. Chief executive officer R. Ramachandran said, “India is a signatory to the farmer convention on tobacco control. We are supposed to phase out the total area by 2020. We want to do that by exposing farmers with remunerative crops,”
According to Ramachandran, the zilla panchayat wants to promote the growth of perennials such as Hebbevu (Melia Dubia) that has a ready market, as well as trying to introduce farmers to other crops and farming practices such as floriculture and bee-keeping, vermicompost making, dairying, and other micro-enterprises based on farm produce.
Tobacco farmers, however, are apprehensive of any government intervention regarding tobacco. “Farmers will find it very difficult to switch over from tobacco. They have the necessary experience for growing it. But with a new crop, they will be lost,” said Appasaheb Desai, a farmer leader. “The government will have to take proactive steps to show that it cares for tobacco farmers,” he said.