Is tobacco not being bought or not being sold?

During a meeting with representatives of tobacco traders and growers from Andhra Pradesh, India, on Tuesday, the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman directed tobacco companies to buy flue-cured in line with the agreements they had reached earlier with the Tobacco Board.

Tobacco sales have been slow in Andhra but tobacco traders say the low off-take of flue-cured tobacco from the market is down to the fact that growers are not presenting their tobacco for sale.

This might be part of the problem. Last month, Y.V. Subba Reddy, an Andhra member of parliament, said that there were no buyers for the low- to medium-grade flue-cured that accounted for more than 70 percent of production this year.

And while he promised to take up the plight of the growers during the monsoon session of parliament, he urged them not to make any ‘distress sales’ in the meantime.

Sitharaman will convene another meeting on July 4.