Increased tobacco crop for K'taka upsets Andhra ryots

The Central government, which failed to convince the Karnataka government to release 50 tmc water from Almatti dam to Andhra Pradesh, has added fuel to the ongoing feud between the farmers of the two states by increasing the size of the tobacco crop in Karnataka from 50 million kg to 67 million kg for 2004-05.

As the farmers are allowed to grow up to 10 per cent extra, the crop size of Karnataka for 2004-05 could be around 75 million kg.

By the same logic the crop size for Andhra for 2004-2005 should have been fixed at 141 million kg, but the crop size in the state has been fixed at 111 million kgs, which is the same as last year.

What has pinched the Andhra farmers was that tobacco traders and exporters, a majority of them from the state, tilted towards increasing crop size for Karnataka and in fact demanded a cut in the crop size for Andhra from last year's 111 million kg to 95 million kg.

Adding to the anguish of the farmers in the state, the Centre regularised about 32,000 unauthorised tobacco barns in Karnataka without attaching any riders. The same facility is not made available to Andhra farmers. They have to pay Rs 4,000 per barn for regularisation, apart from paying registration fees.

The Tobacco Board left the decision on Karnataka's crop size and authorisation of illegal barns to the commerce ministry after the Andhra farmers had objected to the latter move.

The Andhra farmers allege that the Karnataka farmers enjoy a powerful lobby led by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and that bureaucrats in Delhi have succumbed to this lobby's pressure.

These developments have agitated about 46,000 Andhra tobacco farmers with their leaders "" Y Sivaji, president of Virginia Tobacco Growers' Association; Gurava Reddy, president of Tobacco Growers' Association, Ongole; and leaders of Andhra Pradesh Ryotu Sangham P Venkat Rao and K V V Prasad "" have already taken up the issue with the state and central governments.

If the talks fail, the state may witness another round of protests in the tobacco belt in the districts of Prakasam, Guntur, Krishna, East Godavari and West Godavari.

The leaders argue that as last year's crop of 141 million kg has been almost auctioned away, the same production can be fixed as this year's crop size as is in the case of Karnataka.

If the ministry had followed norms, the Karnataka crop size for 2004-05 would not be above 53 million kg.

The farmers point out that last year, low and medium grade tobacco varieties were sold away faster than quality tobacco. The world market trend seems to be towards cheaper tobacco, hence the changed trend in auction floors in the state.

Under the circumstances, the traders' argument that the production of black soil tobacco should be pegged at 35 million kg against the last year's (2003-04) production of 62 million kg, lacks rationale.

Similarly, the southern black soil crop size was fixed at 31.56 million kg against last year's production of 53.14 million kg; that of central and northern black soil at 10.58 million kg, the same size as last year's production; that of northern light soil at 28.92 million kg against 2003-04 production of 35.54 million kg; and, that of southern light soil at 40 million kg against the production of 40.4 million kg.