T

he West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) administration, along with local tobacco farmers, has expressed hope that a controversial draft bill on the tobacco industry currently under deliberation at the House of Representatives will protect farmers’ welfare.

The administration’s aspirations were revealed during a meeting between various stakeholders in the region — where tobacco is a leading commodity — and the House’s special committee overseeing the bill’s deliberation on Thursday at the NTB governor’s office in Mataram, the capital of the province.

NTB Deputy Governor Muhammad Amin said the administration expected the bill to prioritize the protection of tobacco farmers while also regulating other factors regarding the economy and health.

“In NTB, especially in Lombok, tobacco is a leading commodity capable of absorbing significant manpower in the agricultural and horticulture sectors,” Muhammad said.

Citing recent provincial data, Muhammad argued that a tobacco harvest season in NTB could employ up to 125,000 workers, with production value reaching Rp 1.3 trillion (US$97.4 million) to Rp 1.4 trillion.

Muhammad told lawmakers that the administration wanted a bill that would give a bigger, fairer portion of profits to all regions producing tobacco.

So far, the NTB, he said, only receives Rp 300 billion a year, much smaller than that received by other tobacco production centers such as East Java and Central Java.

Head of NTB Agriculture and Horticulture Agency, Husnul Fauzi, said NTB was the country’s biggest production center of Virginian tobacco, with a production size between 35,000 and 40,000 tons, or about 70 percent of national demand for the commodity.

Tobacco farmer Munir, 42, of Semoyan subdistrict in Central Lombok, said that planting tobacco was an occupation that had been inherited by the people in his village for generations.

“With or without help, we will continue planting tobacco. The draft bill means nothing if it has no impacts for us. I swear to God, in 10 years of cultivating tobacco I have never received any assistance,” he said.

Munir told the meeting that he also wanted the bill to regulate aid-receiving mechanisms for farmers without involving middlemen.

The bill has been discussed since 2006, but has yet to be completed due to the sensitivity of its contents and the tug of war between different sets of interests.

But, this year, the House committee set up three teams to collect input and aspirations from stakeholders in three provinces — NTB, East Java and Central Java — to accommodate all issues in a fair manner, including farmer protection, business patterns, state income and health factors, said committee head Willgo Zainar.