Jump to full article: Malaysian National News Agency (BERNAMA) (my), 2005-04-11
Author: Syarifah Hunaini Syed Ismail
Intro: Old habits diehard. This is what the National Tobacco Board is facing as it tries to persuade tobacco farmers not to be too dependent on tobacco for a living, but to diversify into planting of maize, padi, or other economically viable crops.
Some of the farmers were cynical.
Hussein Haron, 53, said: "The board should take over the marketing of maize if I fail to do so."
He was advised to plant maize, watermelons, vegetables or any other crops which can be marketed easily.
Hussein, from Kampung Bujuk, Pasir Mas, was convinced to make the change and opted to plant maize under the integrated crop programme. However, he was not sure of the market for the new crop.
. . .
Although he had been planting tobacco for the past 17 years, Hussein was finally convinced that the future for tobacco farmers was not that rosy as the tobacco industry was in the crossroads.
The industry was facing too many obstacles, including the government's policy to reduce the output quota of tobacco leaves, implementation of marketing reforms to suit the requirements of the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the dumping of smuggled cigarettes.
Hussein realised the sale of tobacco would continue to decline in view of the "Tak Nak" anti-smoking campaign launched by the Health Ministry.
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