Tobacco Production Stabilized on Over 2,000 Hectares

Croatian Tobacco, a company within the BAT group, has completed the contracting of a new production season in which producers in the Croatian Tobacco system will plant tobacco on over 2,000 hectares of agricultural land in four Slavonian and Podravina counties this year, the company reported on Wednesday.

As of the last day of April, they noted, the planting of tobacco has also commenced.

After several years of declining tobacco production, particularly during the pandemic years and the years of energy shock, Croatian Tobacco has stabilized the areas under tobacco this year and will intensify efforts in collaboration with domestic tobacco producers to enhance the quality of produced tobacco and strengthen the profitability of producers.

– We have a quality base of producers and we will continue to work with them on optimizing costs and operations to ensure that the produced tobacco is of the highest quality, and that they achieve the greatest profitability – said the CEO of Croatian Tobacco, Aleksandra Grigić.

Tobacco, as she stated, is the only agricultural crop that has seen a continuous increase in purchase price and secure purchasing in recent years, along with continuous financial support and monitoring of producers in the field, as well as support for investments aimed at increasing productivity.

Croatian Tobacco emphasizes that it has significantly invested in strengthening the resilience of production against increasingly extreme weather conditions, which have caused significant damage to production in recent years.

Investments have been made to improve the drip irrigation system to raise the areas under irrigation significantly above the national average, reaching a total of 27 percent of all irrigated areas last year, which is 11 times higher than the national average.

The company reminded that seven years ago it launched one of the largest investment cycles in agricultural automation, during which more than 80 mechanical harvesters were acquired, which harvest over 60 percent of the areas under tobacco.