World Tobacco Growers’ Day celebrated

Ongole: The Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA) in association with the International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA) celebrated World Tobacco Growers’ Day at the Tobacco Auction Centre-2 in Ongole on Saturday.

Speaking on the occasion, member of tobacco board and executive member of FAIFA Mareddy Subrahmanyeswara Reddy said that the FAIFA and ITGA are celebrating the World Tobacco Growers’ Day for the twelfth consecutive year.

Tobacco provides direct and indirect employment to more than 4.57 crore people in India, and around 70 per cent of them are from agricultural sector. Tobacco products generate tax revenues for more than Rs 70,000 crores annually, along with another Rs 13,000 crores in foreign exchange earnings through the export of tobacco & tobacco products.

Reddy said that specific activities and initiatives are undertaken in India towards sustainable tobacco production, including educating farmers on the importance of safe and environmentally responsible agrochemical use and minimisation of the incidence of Crop Protection Agents (CPAs) residue in the crop, through the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices, setting up of waste collection centres in villages to dispose of empty pesticide containers and wrappers, tray and green tech systems of seedling production to facilitate high yielding and disease resistant tobacco seedlings, use of drip irrigation system resulting in a significant saving of water, soil sustainability measures such as green manuring, sub soiling, soil test-based fertility management, soil nutrient management, optimizing fertiliser application etc., ensuring physical, chemical and biological health of the soil.

He appealed to the government to support the tobacco sector recognising its important contributions.