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Tobacco Deliveries Improve  

Tobacco deliveries to the auction floors have improved over the last few days as the impasse over pricing has subsided. At the Tobacco Sales Floors yesterday, tobacco was fetching between US$3 and US$4 per kg, a slight decline from US$5 last week, while auction sales at the Burley Marketing Zimbabwe were in the region of US$3 per kg.

Contract sales at TSF were ranging between US$1,50 and US$3 per kg. While auction sales passed without incident, some small-scale contract farmers protested over prices for their tobacco. Some farmers alleged that contractors were shortchanging them as they were being made to sell their tobacco under contract when they had received little support from contractors.

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• 5,000 hectares of tobacco farms eyed for intensified rice growing 

Some 5,000 hectares of tobacco farms are being eyed as additional areas for palay growing to help meet the rice requirements of tobacco farmers in line with the Arroyo administration’s accelerated efforts to increase palay harvest and mitigate the effect of a food crisis that is affecting the whole world.

The National Tobacco Administration (NTA) said the other day a 26,000-strong umbrella group of tobacco farmers led by the Philippine Association of Tobacco-Based Cooperatives (PATCO) and other industry stakeholders are ready to support an intensified palay production program of the Department of Agriculture (DA) in response to this global problem.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap lauded the support of the major stakeholders in the tobacco industry-- cigarette manufacturers, tobacco buyers and exporters, redrying plant and trading center operators, contract growers or farmers -- for the department’s heightened moves to achieve record high in palay harvests and raise the national self-sufficiency level in rice from 92.38 percent this year to 98 percent in 2010.

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The politics of tobacco 

They're making political hay these days in Southwestern Ontario's tobacco belt about the federal government's refusal to help growers get out of the business.

Political opponents of Conservative MPs Joe Preston (Elgin-Middlesex-London) and Diane Finley (Haldimand-Norfolk) are churning the stuff out by the bale.

Liberal rivals for both are blasting Preston and the Conservatives for voting down a Liberal motion in Ottawa last week to immediately implement an exit strategy for hard-pressed tobacco producers.

Suzanne van Bommel in Elgin-Middlesex-London is accusing Preston of preferring to vote with his party than to support his constituents. . . .

Both issued press releases criticizing Preston for joining three other Conservatives late last week to oppose the Liberal motion of support for tobacco farmers introduced at the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food. Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz had earlier ruled out funding an exit plan for producers.

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Tobacco at a Crossroads 

* The Presidential Tobacco Commission Report and FDA

* "SMOKEFREE" TOBACCO AND NICOTINE PRODUCTS: A Constructive and Practical "Road Map" Towards a Civil Dialogue to Influence Public and Private Sector Policy Decisions. (November 2007)

* AHEAD House Testimony (FDA/Tobacco) (October 2007)

About the Alliance: The Alliance is an informal organization whose purpose is to educate, stimulate, and facilitate discussions with and between public health advocates, growers, the scientific community, tobacco manufacturers, consumers, pharmaceutical and biotech interests about a spectrum of issues related to the production, processing, manufacture, distribution, labeling, marketing and use of tobacco and tobacco products. The Alliance is an outgrowth of the Southern Tobacco Communities Project established in the mid-1990's

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Liberals push for tobacco exit plan 

Liberals say they will try to bring the plight of beleaguered tobacco farmers to the floor of the House of Commons in Ottawa this week in an emergency debate.

Brant MP Lloyd St. Amand said his party will ask the speaker of the House to call a special session to discuss an exit program to help growers leave their shrinking industry.

Last week, St. Amand and Liberal Agriculture critic Wayne Easter successfully pushed through a motion in Parliament's agriculture advisory committee calling for the Conservative government to implement the buyout program put forward this spring by the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board.

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Sabotage suspected in farm's tobacco crop loss 

State agriculture officials are investigating an intentional poisoning of tobacco crops at a farm in Sanford.

Lee County farmer John Gross told WRAL-TV in Raleigh that the plants inside his greenhouse have been destroyed. Officials believe someone put a toxic chemical on the plants, and tests are being done to determine what chemical was used.

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Tobacco sales end prematurely 

Tobacco auction floors opened in Harare yesterday but sales ended prematurely as farmers blocked them protesting against the opening price.

Angry farmers tore up sales tickets and stood on tobacco bales to block auctioneers, while others tied up bales to prevent access.

Only one bale fetched US$3,90 per kg while some sold for between US$1,70 a kg to US$2,50 per kg.

The farmers said they were not happy with the opening price and would be comfortable with a price in the region of US$5 to US$7 a kg.

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Tobacco-selling season expected to start today 

THE 2008 tobacco-selling season, which was postponed from last week to this week, is expected to start today, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board has said.

The official opening ceremony was expected to take place at 7.30am at the Tobacco Sales Floors.

"The chairman of the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, Mr Njodzi Machirori, advises farmers and members of the industry that the 2008 tobacco-selling season will officially open on Wednesday 30th April 2008 at 7.30am," read part of the TIMB statement.

It was, however, not immediately clear what had been agreed upon with regard to the concerns raised by tobacco farmers, which include the support price.

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Govt sets new tobacco support price 

GOVERNMENT has awarded tobacco farmers a $70 million support price for every US dollar earned for the 2008 selling season, scheduled to open this morning.

The 2008 tobacco-selling season, which was postponed from last week to this week, is therefore, now expected to start today.

The official opening ceremony was expected to take place at 7.30am at the Tobacco Sales Floors.

Although in our business section, which was printed earlier, we carry a story that we were not sure of the outcome of negotiations between growers, the industry and Government, last night Agriculture Minister Cde Rugare Gumbo said the support price was arrived at after consultations with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

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Zimbabwe farmers hold on to tobacco crop in price stalemate 

Zimbabwe's tobacco selling season was called off for the second time in as many weeks Wednesday after farmers withdrew their crop from the auctions citing low prices.

The auction floors in Harare, ranked among the continent's largest, were supposed to open at 7:30 am (0530 GMT), but after around 80 bales went under the hammer, farmers started ripping off the price tags in protest.

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Zimbabwe tobacco farmers protest as inflation soars 

Zimbabwean farmers tore up their tobacco crop in protest on the auction floors of Harare on Wednesday as state price controls to combat hyperinflation threatened to wipe out their profits.

"The price is useless, I would rather keep my tobacco and sell to buyers from Malawi or Zambia," muttered Ottilia Mavhunga, a farmer from Karoi, a town in northern Zimbabwe, as she prepared to take her bales of tobacco away.

The tobacco trading season -- once a key feature of Zimbabwe's business calendar -- had to be called off for the second time in as many weeks after farmers pulled out of the sale, citing low prices given by auctioneers.

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Ugandan Exports Soar 40% on Higher Commodity Prices (Update1) 

Uganda's export earnings soared 40 percent last year on higher prices for most of the country's main commodities, the state-run Uganda Export Promotion Board said. . . .

Income from tobacco more than doubled to $66.3 million last year, when British American Tobacco Uganda Ltd., the east African country's biggest producer, recorded its highest-ever output, the board said.

Farmers contracted to BAT Uganda, a unit of British American Tobacco Plc, increased production in 2007 to 19,000 metric tons, from 12,700 tons a year earlier, the report said. Uganda produces mainly flue-cured tobacco, which is dried in heated barns.

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• Tobacco firm assigns K400m for Malawi schools 

An international tobacco firm, Philip Morris, has set aside K400 million (US$3 million) for the construction of 100 school blocks across the country in the next five years, starting this year, to help improve Malawi's education standards.

The US based tobacco company, which also buys Malawi's leaf, has already channeled K7 million to Total Land Care, a local NGO which would be executing the project in conjunction with district assemblies and education official among others.

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Tobacco floors unlikely to open today 

THE official opening of the 2008 tobacco selling season could be delayed by another day amid indications that there is still no position on issues that were raised by tobacco farmers, especially the support price.

Sources close to negotiations that are taking place to resolve the issues said the selling season, which was deferred by a week, was unlikely to take off today as the matter was being dealt with at the highest level.

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Tobacco farmers fuming over Finley's no-show 

Immigration Minister Diane Finley refused to attend a public meeting with more than 1,000 tobacco farmers - a constituency group with whom she has had considerable problems - because she felt it was an "inappropriate" forum to discuss the farmers' woes.

But organizers of the meeting were told she could not attend because of security concerns.

Ms. Finley was scheduled to speak at a meeting for tobacco farmers in Delhi, Ont., last Thursday. But meeting organizers say the minister's office told them she could not attend because of security issues.

When a reporter asked Ms. Finley yesterday why she didn't attend, she said: "The forum was inappropriate to get the message out, to hear from farmers in an appropriate circumstance. I did meet with the tobacco board later, one-on-one, so I could hear the concerns. We had a very constructive meeting - that was a much more appropriate venue."

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