TOKYO, Nov. 14 – Roughly 40 percent of leaf tobacco farms in Japan, 1,729 farms, are likely to stop production in 2022, in response to Japan Tobacco Inc.’s proposal to reduce the total tobacco cultivation area.
The area where tobacco cultivation will be terminated is expected to reach 1,822 hectares, more than 30 percent of total domestic cultivation.
Japan Tobacco has made the proposal for the first time in a decade amid shrinking tobacco demand due to such factors as stricter smoking regulations.
Tobacco growers are also struggling with heavy workloads and difficulty to secure successors.
After the firm started accepting applications from tobacco farmers nationwide to halt production along with a decline in demand, applications were filed from all of 32 prefectures that cultivate tobacco.
Japan Tobacco will make payments of 360,000 yen per 10 ares to each farmer who agreed to terminate production.
As a result, the cultivation area for 2022 is estimated to total 3,889 hectares, down 34 percent from a year before. The rate of year-on-year drop will be the largest next to the 36 percent decline posted in 2012 when the firm made a similar proposal.
Excluding entrusted production, Iwate Prefecture had the largest number of farms terminating tobacco production with 282, equivalent to 34 percent of all farms in the prefecture with a contract farming arrangement for this year.
Tobacco production will be terminated on 195 hectares of land in Okinawa Prefecture, the largest area among prefectures, equivalent to 27 percent of Okinawa’s total contracted cultivation area for this year.
Iwate, with the largest number of farms quitting tobacco production, set up a panel in September to encourage them to shift to cultivation of other products that the prefecture promotes, such as green peppers or small chrysanthemums.