Mr. Ather Matheen, a tobacco grower, pointing to his farms that were flooded following rainy season in Periyapatna taluk and destroyed his four acres of tobacco crops.
This recent downpours might have come like a saviour from the never-seen-before scorching sun; however, tobacco cultivators are not among the happy farmers due to this heavy rain.
Growers regret that recently planted crop is lost due to floods hence all fertilizers applied have also been washed away by rains.
A drought-tolerant crop
According to Javare Gowda, “Tobacco is a drought-resistant crop. The heavy rainfall threatens its cultivation.”
Mysuru and parts of Hassan district cover an estimated 80,000 -90,000 ha cultivated with tobacco. Planting had already begun on about 50 000 ha after Tobacco Board approved a crop size of 100 million kg for year 2024-25.
Fertilizers should be applied by growers within one week planting their saplings and it has been completed in many places.
However, the heavy rains lashing the area resulted in thousands of hectares of damage to growing tobacco at Periyapatna, Hunsur and HD Kote in Mysuru district as well as Ramanathapura in Hassan district according to Mr Gowda.
While he claimed the destruction was spread across ten thousand hectares during an interview with him at his office; officials from the Regional Office (Mysuru) of Tobacco Board said that an assessment would determine how much loss was done on their plantations. “More rains are expected over the coming days. We will soon conduct an assessment,” said an official.
After evaluating the extent of damage caused by this year’s flood seasons, Mr Gowda requested for substantial compensation from both Tobacco Board and State Government through interviews with various media outlets.
The purchase of these farming materials required loans. Thus, the farmers should be provided with not only interest free loans for buying fertilizers but also crop compensation, he said.
Furthermore, Mr. Gowda wanted to bring in focus to the Tobacco Growers’ Welfare Fund that gets regular contributions from tobacco growers.
Tobacco’s global demand
Accordingly, Mr. Gowda said that Brazil, Zimbabwe and Indonesia had experienced identical problems as Mysuru which were heavy rains leading to high prices of this worldwide.
During 2023-24 auction season in Karnataka, tobacco farmers fetched an average price of Rs 257.46 per kg against last year’s average price of Rs 228.01 a gain of Rs 29.45 per kg.
Average price for export quality FCV its grown in most parts of Karnataka increased by more than double from ₹107.49 a kg received in 2014-15
