Moldovan Tobacco Sector Asks for Help

Tutun Moldova has asked the government to help tobacco growers cope with adverse events such as drought, reports IPN Press Agency.

According to the association, this year’s dry spell has negatively affected two-thirds of the 400 hectares cultivated with tobacco.

In an open letter, Tutun Moldova President Vasile Coșneanu asked Prime Minister Dorin Recean and Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vladimir Bolea to consider tobacco producers’ plight.

According to Coșneanu, Moldova’s tobacco industry can be highly profitable. In 2000, Moldova earned more than $29 million from leaf exports. In 1985, farmers cultivated tobacco on about 77,000 hectares. By 2023, however, this area had dropped below 200 hectares.

Tutun Moldova believes that sector can once again become a pillar of the national economy, providing up to 40,000 jobs and contributing to GDP growth.

However, for this to happen, the sector requires support from public authorities, the association noted, adding that tobacco growers had neither received nor requested public assistance over the past decade.

“This year, however, the severe drought we are facing made us ask you to order the creation of a working group to assess the complicated situation in which the producers have found themselves and to develop a plan of concrete and realistic actions that would be implemented to remedy the state of affairs,” the group wrote in its letter.

“We express our willingness to provide the necessary support to this working group, as we consider that the interest is mutual.”