Tobacco growers get P5.4-m crop assistance

Tobacco growers in Abra province obtained a P5.4 million as production assistance from the National Tobacco Administration to perk up the age-old industry.

Administrator Edgardo Zaragoza said the loan package under the Tobacco Contract Growing System is targeted to sustain the livelihood of a major segment of the farming population.

“We are happy at NTA to learn that the provincial and municipal governments are wisely using their share from the Tobacco Excise Tax Act purposely for the benefit of our tobacco growers,” he said. “We have to return to them the benefits derived from tobacco production, especially the building of farm to market roads, so that they will be able to deliver their produce to the prospective markets the soonest.”

NTA-Abra branch manager Esmeralda Valera said 261 tobacco farmers have availed of the loan package. About 160 hectares of land are included in the cropping season in the 19 tobacco-growing municipalities .

Flue-curing barns in the different towns have been installed to ensure quality leaves that would command a higher price in the market and assured planters of better returns on investment.

Zaragoza urged beneficiaries to be quality and not quantity-oriented.

“We want our farmers to continue increasing their income from tobacco production that is why they should not rush the harvesting of tobacco leaves so that they will be able to get the better ones especially when already dry so that buyers will not take advantage of the situation,” he said. Valera said the capitol was still distributing fertilizers from the remaining subsidy for the cropping season.

Tobacco farming is concentrated in 19 of the 27 towns, an industry second to hybrid and native rice production in lowland and upland municipalities over the past decades.