Croatian tobacco purchased 35 percent more tobacco than last year, production value increased by more than 50 percent

Despite the significant challenges in agricultural production this production year marked by extreme drought, high temperatures, and lack of precipitation, tobacco production has significantly increased, thanks to a quality production environment and the support of Croatian tobacco for its approximately 250 cooperatives. Croatian tobacco, the largest purchaser of tobacco in the Podravina and Slavonia regions operating within the BAT group, is finishing up its purchases for this production season, and will purchase over 4,500 tons of Virginia tobacco, which is 35 percent more than last year. The value of the total purchased tobacco production will increase by over 50 percent compared to last year due to the increase in volume and the continuous rise in purchase prices.

– Tobacco production is one of the most stable and sustainable agricultural productions in Croatia, and this is the result of the production environment in which we continuously and significantly invest. We enable our producers to financially monitor the entire production, support investments in increasing productivity and sustainability of production, with a team of agronomists providing expert support throughout the entire production season, and we purchase the complete production of tobacco of all quality levels and have continuously increased purchase prices for years. In the energy crisis, we provided additional assistance to producers, and this has returned to us this year with an increase in producer interest in tobacco, which we are extremely proud of. Despite a very demanding production year, we have once again shown that together with producers we can achieve a good result, a significant increase in volume and value of purchases, which obliges us all to an even better result next year – said Aleksandra Grigić, CEO of Croatian tobacco.

Due to the increasingly unfavorable impact of climate change and increasingly extreme heat, Croatian tobacco additionally subsidizes investments in irrigation production. In tobacco production, as much as 28 percent of the area under tobacco is irrigated, which is ten times higher than the national average of irrigated areas, and Croatian tobacco’s ambition is to further increase the irrigated areas.

This production season, a total of 2,106 hectares have been contracted, which is 19 percent more hectares where tobacco was planted compared to 2023, and 39 more contracts for the production of this agricultural crop have been signed.

The season was also accompanied by an increased number of inquiries from producers for long-term financing of production, primarily for mechanization: from toppers and tobacco dryers to mechanical harvesters, which harvested about 65 percent of the area. Thanks to mechanical harvesters, producers have significantly reduced labor costs, increased profitability, and removed the biggest obstacle to expanding production – the lack of labor.