By FREDDIE G. LAZARO

VIGAN CITY - Tobacco farmers will soon be richer after an international paper manufacturing company expressed keen interest in buying tobacco pulp from the Philippines to sustain its annual requirement in paper-making.

This was disclosed on Wednesday by Administrator Carlitos S. Encarnacion of the National Tobacco Administration (NTA) who met an official from a large paper manufacturing company from France.

Encarnacion said that Schweitzer-Mauduit International Inc., a paper company based in Quimperle, France, had ordered Jean Christophe Menu, the company’s project manager for engineering, to negotiate for his company’s importation of tobacco pulp from Manila.

Menu was accompanied by Peter Ong, general manager of PDM Philippine Inc., an auxiliary company of Schweitzer-Mauduit International, in a meeting with Encarnacion at the NTA office in Manila.

The Schweitzer-Mauduit Paper Company learned of NTA’s tobacco pulp having good quality in paper manufacturing in its initial evaluation of samples.

According to Encarnacion, the French paper company has a yearly requirement of 1,500 metric tons of tobacco pulp, which can be easily supplied by the NIA because its has an annual tobacco pulp production target of 3,000 metric tons.

“Our office has been producing pulp from tobacco stalks as main component in our research and development program on the other uses of tobacco plant,” Encarnacion explained.

Based on NTA’s annual target production of tobacco pulp I know we could very well supply the needs of the Schweitzer-Mauduit company, Encarnacion assured.

With the French company buying tobacco pulp, more jobs and investment opportunities will be created in the country’s tobacco industry, he added. Base on NTA researchers, all parts of tobacco plants can now be used, such as the leaves, for cigarette-making; the tobacco pulps that were found to be excellent in making quality of paper, the flowers were good source of protein for animal feeds; and the tobacco dust as insecticide and organic fertilizer. Schweitzer-Mauduit is known as a “diversified producer of premium specialty papers also the world’s largest supplier of fine papers.