The Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana produced 569.54 million kg of tobacco in 2021–2022, 9.38 percent less than during the previous growing season, according to an announcement from the tobacco growers’ association Afubra relayed by Kohltrade.
The planted area shrunk by 9.78 percent to 243,590 hectares (ha) in this year. Afubra expects yields to average 2,310 kg per ha compared with 2,299 kg per ha in the previous growing season.
The volume reduction was expected, according to Afubra President Benicio Albano Werner. “We had already estimated that there would be a reduction of 8 [percent] to 10 percent, on average, in southern Brazil,” he said. “This is not negative; on the contrary, it is necessary since, for several harvests, Afubra and the entities representing tobacco growers warn of the need to adapt our product offer to market demand.”
Werner said the decline was due also to growers’ frustration with the commercialization of last year’s harvest and competition for alternative crops. More tobacco farmers, he noted, have been diversifying their operations in recent years.