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Lack of subsidised fertiliser to hurt tobacco leaf exports

Say companies, growers

RAFIQUE SARKER, Rangpur
Tobacco leaf exports worth about $32 million will be at stake on the government's refusal to give growers subsidised fertilisers, say companies and farmers.
Tobacco farmers in Rangpur region are yet to reach any decision on whether or not to cultivate the crop this year.
British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB), the leading tobacco leaf exporter, has not yet assured the growers in Rangpur and Kushtia region of whether it would purchase the crop from them this year in line withan agreement.
Other tobacco leaf exporters like Abul Khair Tobacco, Dhaka Tobacco and Nasir Tobacco also remained undecided.
In previous years, the government supplied fertilisers to the tobacco companies at a subsidised rate for its distribution among the growers the companies had reached contracts with.
Usually, these tobacco growers would get fertiliser on credit from the companies at least one month ahead of cultivation.
A BATB official preferring not to be named told The Daily Star that this year the Ministry of Agriculture asked his company and other tobacco companies to import fertiliser themselves for their growers.
Kamal Sharifuzzaman, deputy director of Department of Agricultural Extension
(DAE) in Rangpur, said: "I am yet to get any official order to cut off allotment of fertilisers for the tobacco farmers. But I know that the ministry has taken such a decision.”
“Government's prime objective for giving subsidy to agricultural input is to increase production of food grains in the country. It is the main concern right now," said the DAE official.
Abdus Salam, a tobacco farmer of Douljore village under Additmari upazila in Lalmonirhat district, has been cultivating export quality tobacco since 2004.
He said tobacco is the only crop by which he, like about 2000 small farmers of the area, had become well-off economically.
Another farmer, Dhonanjoy, said the tobacco farmers in Lalmonirhat district would have to face financial hardship if the government finally implemented the plan about fertiliser.
Another BATB official, asking not to be named, said: “Prices of fertiliser in the world market are high. If the tobacco companies import it at the market rate, farmers cannot afford it.”
Businessmen fear the prices of tobacco leaf in the country will be three times higher than in other countries. "Bangladesh will lose a great opportunity." one of the businessmen said.
The export trend of tobacco
leaf from Bangladesh has been increasing since 2004. In 2008 Bangladesh earned $31.15 million by exporting 11 million kilograms of tobacco leaf.