REX - Regional Express

industryfocus Maloberti concedes farmers are "squashed every which way, but with tobacco it was more so". So, why didn't they do something about it? Well, it wasn't that easy. Many of the farmers in the area were immigrants who arrived in Australia fresh from the cataclysm of World War II. Language was a barrier when negotiating with city-based buyers operating a duopoly. In addition, authoritarian regimes in Europe had stamped their imprint onto these immigrants, who automatically responded to those in power with acquiescence. "The buyers had 'a herd of sheep' they could drive however they wanted," Maloberti says. "It was partly the fault of the system and partly the fault of people who never stood up for themselves." Towards the end, more growers had become vociferous in negotiations, but by then the forces of globalisation and free trade, coupled with loud negative sentiment towards smoking, were making local leaf unpopular. There was also the long-held argument from buyers that it was low grade. "No," says Maloberti. "Smokers were paying $280 a kilo for tobacco and [Maloberti] was getting just $5." "Tobacco from around Mareeba–Dimbulah was among the best in the world." One night, back in the '80s, Maloberti sat down and worked out that smokers were paying $280 a kilo for tobacco and she was getting just $5. It was time to move into coffee growing. Today, China is the major grower of tobacco. In 2004 it produced more than a third of the world's crop. Brazil, India, Turkey and the US are also major producers. About 85 per cent of tobacco in cigarettes is grown in developing nations, including Zimbabwe and Malawi. Commercial tobacco farming in Australia was shut down in October 2006. In 1980 there were 823 tobacco farmers in Queensland; in 2003 there were 125. The Mareeba–Dimbulah region once produced about 9,000 tonnes of tobacco a year, but by 2001 the yield was 2,500 tonnes. The last sale took place in 2004. Tobacco grown around Mareeba used to be dried and made ready for sale locally. In 60-squaremetre automated sheds, worth about $40,000 each, the leaf was 'coloured' to orange-yellow by controlling heat and humidity, and then slowly dried. The process took about 10 days. "You had to watch that it didn't rot," says Remzi Mulla, a renowned former tobacco grower and chief of the North Queensland Tobacco Growers Co-Operative Association. "If you had too much humidity, mould would appear. If you didn't have enough, it would dry green." Depending on which 'pick' (bottom leaves are smaller and lighter while higher leaves are larger), a shed would hold about 17 100-kilogram bales worth of leaf. Today, the plants are illegal. "You can't even grow it for your own use," says Mulla, whose father arrived in the area from Albania in 1929. "A lot of people say my father was one of the people who started the tobacco industry in Mareeba and I'm one of the people who ended it." The North Queensland Tobacco Growers Co-Operative Association remains, even though the industry doesn't, because its shareholders are still waiting for the market to improve before the co-op's assets, including an office building in Mareeba, 67

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