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Australia's tobacco industry is in such dire straits that farmers are being urged to ditch the weed and look for alternatives - including rearing crocodiles.

Spiralling excises, high production costs and the branding of smokers as pariahs have brought the industry to its knees.

Last month, British American Tobacco announced it would no longer buy tobacco leaf from producers in Queensland which, along with a small area of Victoria, produces all of the country's tobacco.

'Ten years ago our industry was worth A$50 million (about HK$209.9 million). At the end of this year it will bring in A$13 million and next year that will drop to A$6.5 million,' Queensland Tobacco Marketing chief executive Peter Soda said.

While the other main tobacco player, Philip Morris, will buy a million kilograms of tobacco this season and next, it is only a quarter of what the Queensland industry needs to stay viable.

The vast majority of Queensland tobacco comes from a small area in the tropical north of the state centred on the town of Mareeba.

Hundreds of farms of around 100 hectares cling to the lower slopes of the Atherton Tablelands.

While Cairns and neighbouring coastal towns such as Port Douglas have thrived in the past 20 years with the influx of millions of tourists keen to dive on the reef and explore pristine national parks, Mareeba is in terminal decline.

Tobacco farmers warn that without help from the federal Government, Mareeba and surrounding settlements will turn into ghost towns.

'There are 20 or 30 shops in town which are empty. Once the tobacco goes, everything else suffers,' Mr Soda said.

At the industry's peak in the 1970s, there were 800 tobacco farmers in this small corner of Queensland.  These days, there are barely 120, with another 130 operating around Myrtleford in Victoria.

Farmers say they have been crippled by taxes. For every cigarette smoked in Australia the Government receives 21 Australian cents, while the farmer receives less than half a cent. Producers are also up against much cheaper tobacco from developing countries such as Malawi, Zimbabwe, Brazil and India.

'It's impossible for us to compete with Third World countries. We're paying Australian prices for water, for fertiliser and fungicides, and for wages,' said tobacco farmer Joe Cardillo.

While many farmers have bailed out of the industry, others have looked for alternatives, including mangoes, timber plantations, Indian hemp and beef cattle.

Other suggestions verge on the bizarre.

Mr Cardillo said: 'We had a conservationist bloke come up here the other day who said we should start rearing donkeys because four-wheel drive vehicles were damaging the environment and tourists should go round the national parks on the back of a mule.

'Another so-called expert said we should start raising finches for the pet bird market. They're fairytale ideas.'

Farming crocodiles for their meat and skin is another proposal.

Another nail in the coffin for the tobacco industry came last month, when a woman who is dying of lung cancer became the first Australian smoker to successfully sue an international tobacco company.

Rolah McCabe, a 51-year-old grandmother from Melbourne, was awarded A$700,000 in compensation after taking British American Tobacco to court.

Mr Cardillo admits the future looks bleak, but refuses to give up.

'We look like losing the industry, but while Australians are still smoking, why shouldn't they smoke Australian tobacco? It's equal to the best in the world,' he said.



Australian farmers fume as tobacco industry goes up in smoke