SWABI: Tobacco growers are facing severe difficulties in selling their crop, with traders and small cigarette manufacturers offering rates more than 50 per cent below the official price, growers said on Saturday.

The purchase season for flue-cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco is in full swing across growing districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

For the current year, companies’ total requirement has been set at 61.627 million kg, of which 58.184m kg is FCV used in cigarette manufacturing.

However, the two multinationals — Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC) and Philips Morris International Pakistan — are adhering to the official rate only for growers with whom they have existing contracts. Several contracts have lapsed after the companies reduced their procurement quotas for this year.

Traders offer Rs350 per kg against official rate of Rs740

Tamirz Khan, a grower from Shahmansoor, said he was compelled to burn five bundles of FCV in protest outside the Swabi Press Club last week after traders offered him Rs350 per kg. “That does not even cover my cost of production,” he said.

Muhammad Ali Dagiwal, a growers’ leader, said the Ministry of National Food Security and Research had fixed the minimum support price for FCV at Rs740 per kg for the current year. “But no one except the multinationals is buying at this rate, and that is causing immense hardship,” he said.

He added that rejections at purchasing centres were adding to growers’ distress. “If a farmer brings 10 bundles to a centre, four are often rejected. This is creating a lot of disappointment,” he said.

Growers told Dawn that most small companies were waiting for multinationals and major national buyers to complete their announced purchases. Once any remaining tobacco is declared surplus, they expect prices to fall further before making large-scale purchases, as happened last year.

In 2025, PTC alone procured 39m kg of surplus tobacco, with other buyers also picking up their respective surplus quotas, particularly small cigarette manufacturers.

An official of a leading national company said there was growing rivalry between multinationals and domestic firms. He alleged that the two multinationals were seeking to preserve their dominance and push smaller companies out of the market.

Officials of multinational companies, however, blamed national companies and small manufacturers for the market disruption, saying they were failing to procure their quotas on time.

They urged the Pakistan Tobacco Board to hold these firms to their announced commitments to prevent continued turmoil.

Growers said buyers’ policies this year had left them discouraged and financially vulnerable.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2026