Andhra Pradesh is one of the states where tobacco is cultivated the most. Since this is a cash crop people put in lot of efforts for final output of the tobacco. In our villages also tobaccor is grown and its a long process from planting to processing and it takes several months.
Every day we used to go the river of our village with other children in the evening for playing games on the banks of the river. The river is full of people who carry water home for drinking purposes. Onway to river we have some agricultural fields where tobacco is grown. The land near the village is ours and over a period of time we had to sell for some family needs. Since these are close to the village everyone wanted to buy these.
Since we go to river regularly we do observe how the tobacco is grown and processed. First the plant the tobawillcco and they keep distance from one plan to other as when they grow the leaves grow bigger for that reason they keep a gap. In our eyes only these small plants grow bigger and when the farmers feel that this is the time to cut they cut these plants and keep them like hay. n Again they will have lot of bamboo roofs in large numbers and they first hang them on to these to dry. Then they cover these and after some days the tobocco color will change to brown.
After a number of days when they feel that this is the time to do the processing then they hire large number of labour and the labour go to these places in the morning and carry their food for lunch. Then they peel the tobocco leaves into two pieces and bundle them.
In fact the buyers come to the villages well in advance and check the tobacco available in the villages as i said in the season you will find many farmers grow tobacco and process and sell. so the middle men or buyers go to all farmer and see their products. Once the deal is done nd advance money is paid, then these are exported on bullock carts to the factory or godown. Sometimes the distance varies from 10 kms to 100 kms to delivery the tobacco bundles to the factory.
During this period of planting to processing the farmers are busy and labour get good wages and work for few months.