Tobacco Farmers Forced to Sell Crop at Lower Prices
SWABI: Tobacco growers in Swabi have criticised the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) for failing to arrange purchases of surplus tobacco, more than a month after the regular buying season ended, leaving farmers struggling to sell their crops at fair prices.
Multinational and national tobacco companies said purchasing stopped on September 15 after firms completed their annual buying quotas announced by the PTB. They said the board and the Federal Ministry of National Food Security and Research were responsible for developing a strategy to ensure companies purchased surplus tobacco in accordance with the rules.
Tobacco prices fall after regular buying season
Members of the Kashtkar Ittehad Association said surplus tobacco was being purchased at Rs545 per kilogram, compared with more than Rs700 per kilogram during the regular buying season. They said the lower prices were allowing companies and traders to earn millions of rupees at the expense of farmers.
Iqbal Khan Shewa, the association’s patron in chief, told Dawn that companies and traders were exploiting tobacco growers because of their weak financial position. Small cigarette manufacturers and other businesses were taking advantage of the uncertain market by buying tobacco at low prices.
Growers lack adequate storage facilities and financial resources, forcing them to sell their crops at heavily discounted prices.
Imran Khan, a tobacco grower from the Maneri Bala region, told Dawn that company officials and tobacco traders knew farmers lacked the resources and facilities needed to store their produce, leaving them vulnerable to low offers.
PTB promises to start buying surplus crop
Growers criticised the PTB for failing to develop a purchasing strategy and alleged that its officials consistently favoured tobacco companies over growers. They said national and multinational companies were delaying purchases or showing little interest in buying the surplus crop.
PTB Secretary Fakhruddin told a national daily that the board would soon begin purchasing surplus tobacco from the growers.
The math behind the distress
The gap between Rs545 and Rs700 per kilogram is roughly a 22 per cent discount — the difference, for many growers, between breaking even and losing money on the season. Tobacco is a high-input crop: fertiliser, labour and curing all cost money upfront, and most small growers borrow to finance the season. Selling the surplus at a fifth below the in-season price wipes out the margin they counted on.
Swabi, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, is the heart of Pakistan’s tobacco belt, and the PTB’s annual quotas set the framework within which companies buy. When the regular buying closed on September 15 with quotas fulfilled, growers holding surplus leaf had nowhere official to take it. Without warehouses or cold storage of their own — and without cash reserves to wait — they became forced sellers in an informal market where buyers set the price.
A familiar imbalance
The Swabi growers’ complaint follows a pattern seen across Pakistan’s farm economy this season: producers squeezed between announced support prices and what the market actually pays. Hyderabad’s flour millers recently rejected the official wheat issue price as unworkable, and Sindh had to release subsidised wheat to cool flour prices.
Tobacco is a major cash crop for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and a significant export earner — yet the growers at the base of that chain say they are capturing less of the value. The PTB’s promise to begin surplus purchases will be tested in the coming days: until buying actually starts, Swabi’s farmers remain price-takers in a market they cannot afford to wait out. Their plight cuts against the export-led growth ambitions the government has set for the farm sector.
