Tobacco farmers losing millions

By Mario Supnad

SANTAGO, Ilocos Sur- The thousands of Virginia tobacco farmers are losing hundreds of millions, if not billions of pesos, from their crops due to the very low prices of their products this season and blamed the government for doing nothing on their plight.

A tobacco farmer himself, Mayor Josefino Miranda of this town, lamented that the prices of tobacco this year was so poor compared to the prices last year, contrary to what the National Tobacco Administration is claiming.

“The deplorable plight of the tobacco farmers this season is more severe than that of the El Nino problem in other regions since this is a billion of pesos industry, and yet the government, particularly the NTA, is doing nothing to help the farmers increase their products. This raises our suspicion that there was collusion among the buyers of the Virginia tobacco products this year to downgrade it,” said Luis.

The tobacco farmers in this Virginia tobacco producing town, claim that the prices of their products today is lower by P15 to P20 pesos per kilo, saying the Class A leaves that commanded P85 per kilo last year was only P70 per this season.

The farmers asked former governor Luis “Chavit” Singson and Gov. DV Savellano to immediately to something to upgrade the prices of their products to save the industry from losing again a big amount of money. The national government is earning close to P22 billion of pesos yearly from the tobacco industry alone.

Recently, the NTA, through its administrator Carlitos Encarnacion, issued statement in the national newspaper that the prices of tobacco was greatly increased after a tripartite tobacco conference in Manila was held. This, however, was budded by the farmers as pure lies, saying the NTA does not know what it was saying.

The agreed upon new prices of flue-cured Virginia tobacco, according to Encarnacion were: Grade AA-P66; A-P64; B-P62; C-P60; D-P55; E-P54; -F1- P50; F2-P47 and Reject P28.

They said that the actual prices of Virginia tobacco today was lower by P15 to 20 per kilo contrary to what the NTA is claiming. “Hopefully, the price of tobacco will be improved later,” said Miranda.

The tobacco farmers feared that they cannot probably repay their debts due to the very poor prices of their products, as they also appealed to Rep. Eric Singson, 2nd district, to also look for their lamentable plight and not relay on the press releases of the NTA which is not accurate but deploring.