The Hindu Business Line : Panel set up for sustaining FCV tobacco export potential

Specialty
A new programme to sustain the export potential of the crop, which is preferred for its low nicotine, high sugars and smooth body.
Also to support capabilities of Mysore farmers.

Kolkata April 30

The rain-fed Mysore FCV tobacco crop, ranging between 85 million kg and 97 million kg and valued at around Rs 540 crore, (during the 2006-07 season), is said to be the star among the country's leaf tobacco exports, with 70 per cent of the produce exported.

Core committee

A "core committee" comprising scientists of the CTRI Reaearch Station in Hunsur at Mysore, Tobacco Board members and a senior team of ITC-ILTD Ltd has taken up a new programme to sustain the export potential of the crop, which is preferred for its low nicotine, high sugars and smooth body.

The objective is to introduce good agricultural practices among the 40,000 odd small and marginal farmers of the region, for whom cultivation of FCV tobacco is a lifeline.

Dwelling on the Mysore crop development activities of the core committee, Dr M.M. Shenoy, Head of the Regional Centre of CTRI, told Business Line in Hunsur recently that the key objective was to support the capabilities of the Mysore farmers to enhance competitiveness of "Mysore" as a natural neutral filler crop with a high degree of product uniformity and integrity in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

He said the crop, fetching an average price of Rs 56 per kg (at last auctions), however, suffered from low productivity at around 1,241 kg per hectare, and the core committee's basic mandate is to help improve this situation.

Focus area

The focus areas are said to be farm productivity improvement, natural resource management (NRM) and farmer empowerment, through both knowledge and infrastructure beef-up.

Explaining the outreach approaches of the core panel, Dr Shenoy said model project area programmes, which involved adoption of villages for implementation of improved packages, have been taken up, particularly to raise yield and quality, communicate good agricultural practices in the vernacular and carry out practical demonstrations of various agro-techniques with the help of digital audio-visual modules.

On the NRM programme with regard to energy conservation, the scientist said besides educating the farmer on more efficient use of fuel, the other two areas were reduced thermal loss through paddy straw insulation in the curing barns and efficient fuel combustion by using the "Venturi"Furnace process.

Energy sources

Some of the alternative sources of energy in leaf curing, according to him, could be through use of coffee husk and briquettes from agri wastes including tobacco stalks. He said some 20 per cent of the barns in the Mysore area have been covered under the energy conservation techniques, with some 40 per cent using coffee husk as fuel.

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