During the first meeting of the Rio Grande do Sul Tobacco Sector Chamber this year held on May 4, the president of the Brazilian Tobacco Growers Association (Afubra), Benício Albano Werner, presented a preliminary assessment of the Brazilian tobacco crop 2021/2022 .

Partial marketing surveys carried out by Afubra's technical and field teams with tobacco growers in the three southern states of Brazil indicated a 43% increase in the price paid for Virginia (R$10.54 to R$15.09) and 35% for Burley (R$10.02 to R$13.48), compared to the 2020/2021 harvest.

In general, companies are paying this season more than U$3,00 per kg of Virginia tobacco, and there is a strong competition still going on to purchase the remaining stocks of green tobacco from farmers. By the end of April, on average in the three southern states of Brazil, 73% of the Virginia, 93% of Burley and 92% of Comum tobacco were already sold to the companies.

Increasing costs of energy, fuel, imported fertilizers, local logistics and labor are significantly affecting the cost of tobacco. All this factors resulted on the increase of the export prices for 2022.