The Japanese Tobacco Company JTI, has expressed hope that it will manage to eradicate problems related to the presence of Non Tobacco Related Materials (NTRM) found in the bales of tobacco among its contracted farmers following intensive awareness to farmers of the dangers associated with presence of such materials in tobacco.
During the media visit to the processing factory on Wednesday, the company showed members of press a lot of non-tobacco related materials being found in bales of tobacco that the company is buying at the Auction Floor in Lilongwe. Such materials includes; metals, stones, chicken feathers, strings, plastic and grass which farmers are allegedly mixing with tobacco to increase the weight of bale while some farmers are doing it because of careless.
Mr. Antonio Vencesla, Corporate Affairs and Communications Director for JTI said the company is targeting to achieve zero NTRM presence in tobacco bales possibly by next year because the company has intensified sensitisation among its contracted farmers on side effects of the presence of NTRM in tobacco.
“We are still getting non-tobacco related materials which is worrisome to us” said Mr. Antonio Vencesla, then expressed hope that this problem will come to an end very soon.
Mr. Vencesla said the company has extension services through which farmers are being encouraged to bring uncontaminated tobacco to the market. He said since the start of this awareness, the company has already seen some significant signs of change among farmers.
He said through this intervention, farmers are being told that anything that is not tobacco is harmful if they happen to be mixed into the cigarettes and that the presence of such unwanted materials are threat to tobacco production which can bring direct negative impact to their income.
The JTI Corporate Affairs and Communications Director said the company is working hard to ensure that it is exporting high quality tobacco product free of NTRM and this was seen to be done during the visit at the processing plant in Kanengo, where members of press were taken through all the processes and stages of tobacco processing. All stages feature highly number of workers and technologies that removes any material that is not tobacco before the processed product is packed and exported to JTI markets.
According to Mr. Vancesla the company has invested more resources in the removal of the NTRMs because the company understands that these materials can do great damage to JTI business once such unwanted materials reaches to the JTI customers abroad.
“We are trying by all means to reduce the presence of NTRM right away from the farmer and when the tobacco reaches here, we make sure that at each and every stage we remove all NTRM’s because if any instance of contamination gets to our customer, will mean a claim or unhappy customer.” He said
He then encouraged farmers to always properly inspect their tobacco and remove all non-tobacco related materials before taking their crop to the market. He assured farmers in the country that the company is buying tobacco at a very competitive prices and therefore farmers should ensure that their tobacco is free of contamination for them to get good prices being offered by the company.
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