Tobacco farmer Sojo could not hold back his anger that day in 2017. He was standing among hundreds of other farmers waiting for his harvest to be graded on a factory conveyor belt. He jumped on the machine, found the “off” button and switched off the belt. He then shouted to the factory workers to stop the grading and trading of the crop.

He was angry because he felt he and other tobacco farmers were being treated unfairly – that they had no say in the grading process and were forced to accept whatever the graders decided, even if they felt it was inaccurate. The factory belonged to a company that sold tobacco leaves to a major cigarette producer in Ngawi, East Java.

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The trading relationship between the tobacco buying company in Ngawi and the farmers was officially referred to as a “partnership”, but it was certainly not equal, Sojo said.

The graders evaluated the quality of the farmers’ flue-cured tobacco leaves and categorized them by quality to set a price.

The “partnership scheme”, established through a 2019 Agriculture Ministry regulation, aims to create mutually beneficial cooperation between small-scale farmers and large tobacco businesses. It is intended to offer farmers assistance in cultivating tobacco through the provision of training, seeds and fertilizer, while tobacco warehousing companies gain a sure supply of the leaf.

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