The Tobacco Board has decided to reduce the target for the crop by eight per cent or about 59 million kg (mn kg) even in the current year, said Chairman G Kamala Vardhana Rao.
The board had brought the crop size down by a similar quantum in the past year, by reducing it five per cent in Andhra Pradesh and three per cent in Karnataka. About 250,000 hectares are under tobacco cultivation in these two states.
India produces around 735 mn kg of tobacco annually, of which 375 mn kg is utilised for making cigarettes, while the remaining 360 mn kg is meant for non-cigarette products like beedi and chewing tobacco.
The board, a signatory of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, is reducing the crop size as a part of efforts to curb tobacco usage.
Rao said the board was also encouraging farmers to shift to cultivation of alternative crops like maize, cotton and pulses. Last year, more than 4,000 of an estimated 150,000 tobacco farmers, raised alternative crops instead of tobacco.
He said the Union government was examining a rehabilitation package, proposed three years earlier, for encouraging tobacco farmers to shift to alternative crops.
The tobacco farmers were, however, demanding compensation for the barns they have set up at a cost of Rs 2-3 lakh.