Tobacco Board opposes move to cap farming production

The Tobacco Board, which represents the 36-million tobacco farming community in India, is protesting the current FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) draft guidelines and recommendations. The draft guidelines and recommendations of the World Health Organisation’s FCTC will be discussed at the fifth Conference of Parties (COP 5) at Seoul in Korea from November 12-17, 2012.

“The draft guidelines aim to cap tobacco farming production, restrict the available land for tobacco farming, deny farmers their political and commercial rights to engage with their governments, ban the contractual relations between farmers and their buyers. In doing so, these policies directly threaten the jobs and livelihoods of tens and thousands of farm families,” Pammi Badri Reddy, member of the Tobacco Board, said in a statement.

Condemning the recommendation of FCTC for cutting off all government and private sector support, which according to him would be devastating for tobacco farmers in the situation where no alternative viable crop is identified in place of tobacco, Reddy said the guidelines were built on the misguided assumption that the tobacco growing countries could shift tobacco farmers to alternative crops or livelihoods.

“The reality is that no successful alternatives have been identified and there may, in fact, be no alternative for the tobacco-growing regions around the globe because tobacco is grown on soils with low fertility and arid climates, and such land is not suitable for production of other crops,” he said. The Tobacco Board is also opposing the recommendations made towards regulating the seasons when tobacco can be grown, creating a de facto ban on growing tobacco during the peak seasons.

Besides, it is protesting against the recommendation that all countries should decrease the tobacco growing in unison, which it says is an unrealistic plan that puts the most tobacco-dependent economies at risk, and the proposed increase in boarder trade. According to the original goals of FCTC, tobacco growers and workers should be involved in decision making and must be given adequate channels to voice their needs and concerns.

“But to date, tobacco farmers have been totally excluded from the debate. The FCTC consultation process has allowed a few health ministry bureaucrats to seal the fate of crores of small tobacco farmers and farm labourers without considering the realities of tobacco farming,” Reddy said. The Tobacco Board is urging the central government to request the FCTC working group to revise its draft policy recommendations and incorporate inputs from tobacco farmers’ organisations and agricultural policy specialists on specific, detailed and credible option for diversification with alternative crops.

“We will observe ‘World Tobacco Growers Day’ on October 29 this year as a day of protesting against the FCTC recommendations, intended to throw the tobacco farmers into economic crisis, by organising rallies and ceasing farm work that day,” he added.