Tobacco and Public Health - TCSC Indonesia

YUSSUF SALOOJEE 275
In recent years, both Malawi and Zimbabwe witnessed protests by farmers over low
auction prices resulting in regular delays in the opening or temporary closure of the
auctions.
The decline in price in Malawi in 2000 was also in part due to the quality of tobacco
sold, as farmers used less fertilizer following a hike in the price of chemical fertilizers.
The President of the Tobacco Association of Malawi (TAMA) is reported as saying:
‘Escalating costs of farm inputs and labour makes it difficult for many small-scale
tobacco farmers to grow tobacco profitably. Many have failed to repay fertiliser and
other input loans.’
Variable market prices and a diminishing rate of return have encouraged some farmers
to begin moving away from tobacco. Other reasons for diversifying away from tobacco
include:
*The environmental effects of heavy pesticide use associated with tobacco growing,
and deforestation in countries where tobacco is cured with fuel wood. A medium to
serious degree of tobacco-related deforestation exists in southern and eastern Africa
(Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia) and west Africa
(Togo, Nigeria). In southern Africa an estimated 140 000 hectares of woodlands are
cleared annually to supply fuelwood to cure tobacco, accounting for 12 per cent of the
deforestation in the region (Geist 1988).
Furthermore, replacing indigenous forests with largely monoculture plantations of
fast-growing foreign species like eucalyptus, which draws heavily on underground
water resources, causes biodiversity losses in both flora and fauna.
* Tobacco threatens food security in the region, with Kenya, Malawi, and Zimbabwe
all having to import maize to meet domestic requirements. Small-scale farmers complain
that growing tobacco requires intensive labour for long periods so that they do
not have the time to grow traditional food crops like maize, beans, and cassava—nor
do they earn enough to buy sufficient food for their families (Kariuk 1998).
* The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions has complained that child
labour in tobacco-growing areas continues unabated. It states that, ‘more than twenty
per cent of the workforce on commercial plantations, especially tobacco plantations,
are children. Much child labour on these commercial plantations is hidden because the
tenant farming system encourages the whole family to work. Many children are kept
from school in order to contribute to the family growing effort, and smaller children
are often kept from school in order to perform the domestic tasks that the parents
and older siblings are not available to perform. The ILO [International Labour
Organization] estimates that over 440 000 children between the ages of 10 and 14 are
economically active in Malawi, which constitutes over thirty per cent of this age group.’
(afrol News 2002)
The greatest stumbling block to tobacco control in SSA is the widely held perception
of the importance of tobacco to its economies. The hundreds of thousands of