Promoting a viable alternative to tobacco growing, an imperative of the FCTC

The promise of economic development is often made by cigarette companies to encourage countries to encourage tobacco cultivation in low and middle income countries, to the point that the latter now concentrate more than 90% of global production.[1]. However, after several decades, it is clear that the development of tobacco cultivation has not been accompanied by any economic prosperity. On the contrary, it leads to multi-generational impoverishment of farmers, encourages child labor, exposes populations to various diseases, and permanently destroys local ecosystems (soil and water pollution, deforestation, floods, droughts, disappearance of animal species).[2]).

However, entire economies depend on this activity. This is particularly the case of Malawi, the world's seventh largest producer of tobacco, which accounts for 70% of the country's foreign exchange earnings.[3]To promote tobacco cultivation among the population, the tobacco industry offers financial and material loans to farmers, which the latter, due to the low profitability of their activity, are often unable to repay at the end of the harvest, placing them in a vicious circle of debt and financial dependence.

The fight against tobacco is not limited to the fight against smoking. It must be understood in a systemic way, that is, from production to consumption. In order to fight the tobacco industry fairly, its externalities must also be taken into account: a general drop in demand automatically leads to a drop in the price of tobacco leaf, and thus a substantial drop in income for the producing countries.

Given the high degree of dependence of certain countries and populations on tobacco leaf, the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has included in its Article 17 the need to provide a " support for economically viable replacement activities[4] ", that is, a credible alternative to tobacco growing.

Read “Yes, there are alternatives to tobacco growing”

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