Vijayawada: Dreams of the tobacco growers on making huge gains riding on the last year’s profits were completely shattered as the auctions almost hit a dead end. A deep crisis in the auction market has pushed the growers into serious trouble as debts are mounting by each passing day.Taking advantage of the huge surplus crop, the traders are just waiting for the ‘opportune’ to pick up stocks. In a new strategy, the traders are rejecting stocks without offering by price at the auction platforms. The traders are of the view that offering ‘low price’ will only help the growers to make it a controversy and hit the streets with protest. Farmers are alleging that the traders are deliberately delaying the purchases only to pick up the stock at low price by taking advantage of the surplus crop.However, the traders are citing poor international demand for the slow purchases. Surprisingly, the traders did not pick up even 15% of the total production even after two months after the launch of the auctions. The tobacco board has authorised a crop size of 167 million kgs for the current season (2024-25). After tasting the huge price of around 300-360 per kg during the last season, the farmers literally went overboard and cultivated additional crop.Inf act, the traders have also encouraged the growers to go for additional crop with a promise to offer decent prices. The tobacco board estimated that production from Andhra Pradesh might touch around 240 million kgs, which is almost 73million kg surplus than the authorized stock. This is almost 50% additional stock which put the traders on advantageous platform. The tobacco board chairman Yaswanth Kumar Chidipothu, executive director Viswasree held discussions with the merchants and growers representatives to resolve the issue. However, the traders did not make any concrete assurance to pick up the entire stock citing poor export orders. A few leading export firms have, however, promised to continue the purchases to ease the market. “We have requested the board authorities to press either Markfed or Nafed into market to purchase the stocks to create a competitive environment,” said S Venkatramaiah, farmer from Prakasam district. According to board authorities, about 38 million kgs of stock was purchased in the last 55 days since the auctions launched with an average price of 260 per kg. However, the farmers allege that traders are actually offering just around 220 per kg for huge stock and taking average price to 260 by offering little higher price to low quantity of stock.
