NTA, farmers unite to save tobacco industry

BATAC, Ilocos Norte – Moving swiftly to preempt a repeat of last season’s financial disaster that befell tobacco farmers, the National Tobacco Administration recently organized marathon dialogues with local government units and industry sectors that yielded tough measures to improve the crop.

While in the past, farmers would be generally intolerant of rigid government-sponsored-technology, observers noted that this time, they appeared cooperative to quality-boosting NTA technology including stopping the use of incompatible fertilizer and pesticides.

In leading the dialogues held in the Ilocos tobacco-growing provinces, NTA Administrator Bert Illorin said President Arroyo would not want to see the faces of farmers turning "sour" again.

"We will not allow the tobacco industry to die. It is the lifeblood of the North and a pillar of the national economy for the huge revenues it generates that are, in turn, spent for various socio-economic projects of the government," the administrator said.

The administrator also took to task big time tobacco traders who, he said, through the long decades of dealing with the farmers, have amassed great wealth. "It is from the farmers that they made their riches so it is just fitting for them to help in the upliftment of their conditions and not to leave them unaided in time of crisis, just like what they have just experienced," he said.

He admitted that there were defective tobacco produce last season originating from salty soil that impaired the leaves’ quality. But he said that traders used to buy these types called "rejects" except last season.

"Bakit ngayon di na binili (Why aren’t they buying now)," he asked. "It is because they shifted buying from new sources abroad?"

Among the measures adopted in the series of dialogues to make local tobacco "globally competitive" was the halt on the use of farm areas classified as "s`alty".

Salty tobacco has been avoided by buyers fielded by cigarette manufacturers for its alleged low burning character.

It was proposed that these areas should marked out and be utilized instead for other crops.

Dr. Roberto Bonoan, NTA farm development department manager, said water testing technology is available to gauge instantly the presence of salty water in farm areas while the chloride content of soil can be tested by NTA’s researchers.

Of Ilocos Norte’s 3,500 hectares of tobacco land, 219,75 ha. have been marked as "salty", according to the province’s NTA chief agriculturist Candelario Corpuz.

Regionwide, it was learned that coastal areas from San Nicolas to Currimao towns in Ilocos Norte, Sta. Maria in Ilocos Sur and Binmaley and Lingayen in Pangasinan are initially in the "salty" list.

The use of chloride free fertilizers were also endorsed to the farmers by NTA researchers while rain impounding system were seen as alternative sources of water for tobacco farms.

The government was encouraged to construct minidams and small water impounding projects to trap rain water for later use by tobacco farmers.

In Candon, Ilocos Sur which produces the highest volume of Virginia tobacco, the dialogue drew four mayors led by Candon Mayor Grace Singson who announced that the much awaited funding shares of the Ilocos provinces from tobacco tax revenues is due next month.

Earlier, the government had been asked to share a portion of the funds for NTA to administer inorder to resuscitate the ailing tobacco industry. Philippine Association of Tobacco-Based Cooperatives, a farmer’s group headed by its president, Carlos Cachola is spearheading the clamor.

NTA-Candon and NTA-Batac managers Rodrigo Pagtulingan and Nestor Casela vowed that with the hope-for funds mandated by R.A. 7171, their personnel would work round the clock to further bolster the quality and volume of leaft harvests in their areas.