INDIA
The International Tobacco Growers’ Association (ITGA) held its 31st annual general meeting (AGM) on September 20-21in New Delhi.
The meeting had a presentation by the president of the Tobacco Board of India and others on the world market for tobacco products and the main threats from the coming COP7 of the FCTC on tobacco production.
In the second day, ITGA held its general assembly in which the members debated the main problems affecting them in their countries. Among these, they highlighted the difficulty of thousands of growers to cover their costs of production with the prices currently being paid; the rates of bale rejection in some auctions; the increasing level of compliance requirements very difficult to meet with their present level of income; the consequences of consumption decline to the demand of their production in some important markets without a correspondent effort to control production by the directly contracting buyers; the need for multi-annual contracts to ensure the sustainability of tobacco production; the threats of extreme regulation like plain packaging and nicotine reduction for the future of their businesses.
The members approved a strategy paper considering these concerns and asked the ITGA secretariat to contact the main buyers to debate those concerns.
AGM elected with immediate effect, a new board of directors: Daniel Green of the Burley Stabilization Corporation(US) as president; Reuben Maigwa of TAMA, Malawi as vice president; and Tsvetan Filev, NAT Bulgaria, as treasurer. Anthony Neill Ford from the Tobacco Association of Zambia was also elected as the new chairman of ITGA for the African region.