Tobacco farmers assured of market for products
ROSALES–Thousands of tobacco farmers in Pangasinan and the Ilocos provinces have expressed relief that their produce will have a sure market this year.
Mario Cabasal, president of the National Federation of Tobacco Growers and Cooperatives (NFTGC), said Mighty Corporation has made commitments to initially buy at least 10 million kilograms of tobacco leaves and to purchase all the excess tobacco leaves that farmers could not sell to other buyers.
“We limited to minimum areas fields planted to tobacco last year in anticipation of depressed demand due to the scheduled implementation of the sin tax,” said Cabasal adding that “good thing, some farmers were able to sell part of their low-grade harvests to Mighty Corporation in 2013.”
“Now that we are assured of an alternative market, besides other tobacco companies, our members will again be inspired to devote larger areas to the cultivation of Ilocandia’s most important cash crop,” he said.
Many farmers in Region 1, out of fear that tobacco prices and demand for the yellow leaf would dive as a result of the new excise tax law on cigarettes, shifted to planting yellow corn, the only other cash crop that thrives in dry land where rainfall is scarce during the summer months.
Profits from corn are, however, lower than tobacco.
Planting of the golden leaf started last month and selling the harvest usually peaks just before the Holy Week in April
“With Mighty’s assurance that the company will buy all the unsold tobacco harvested by farmers, we can also be sure that unlike in the past, prices will stay high even after the holiday season,” Cabasal said.
Meanwhile, Casal also lauded the latest announcement by the company of the P10-million three-pronged programs to directly help the tobacco farmers that will include the donation of support farm implements like irrigation pumps and tractors, new 200 college scholar grants for the sons of daughters of tobacco farmers and the institutional support for the annual search for outstanding tobacco farmers and cooperatives.
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