Bangkok--3 Apr--124 Communications
Representatives of millions of Asian tobacco farmers from China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia will gather from March 28 to 30 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to mobilize against the threat of seeing their livelihoods confiscated by out of touch international health bureaucrats.
The focus of the farmers’ anger is a recommendation by a World Health Organization (WHO) working group. Ten years ago, under the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), governments that signed up to the treaty committed to helping tobacco farmers find viable economic alternatives to growing tobacco, with the assumption that demand would decline over time. Today, in spite of recognizing that the research for alternatives will take many years, the Working Group gave in to years of pressure from heavily financed anti-tobacco NGO’s and issued recommendations which have taken a radically different direction - a phase out of tobacco growing without actually providing any viable fallback solutions for the vast Asian tobacco farming community.
“For years now, blinkered health bureaucrats with no experience in agriculture have been working behind the safety net of the WHO to explain how tobacco farmers can support their families with alternative crops. Yet with absolutely nothing to show for it, they’ve decided the simple solution is to tell governments to make it impossible for growers to keep growing tobacco, regardless of the outcome on millions of jobs,” says Antonio Abrunhosa, CEO of the International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA), which represents more than 30 million tobacco farmers around the world. “It’s like asking a Ministry of Culture to sort out the economic crisis. These people do not have the competence; it doesn’t take an expert to work out that if one country stops growing tobacco, another will take its place.”
Asia is home to millions of tobacco farmers and produces more than half of the world’s production of tobacco leaf. For many, tobacco is the only crop they can grow which provides sustainable income for their families.
The Thai Tobacco Growers, Curers and Dealers Association (TTA) has traveled to Malaysia to share their views with other Asian farmers and discuss a unified stand against regressive tobacco farming policies. “We call on the Thai government to listen to its farmer constituents rather than accept the meaningless agricultural policies of international health pressure groups who know nothing about the consequences of their recommendations, says Mr. Krit Phathong, Vice Chairman, Tobacco Growers, Curers and Dealers Association of Chiang Mai.
Background
The ITGA and PITAS - the Kelantan Tobacco Growers and Curers Association of Malaysia - are organizing the Asia Tobacco Forum on March 28-30.
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