BANGLADESH

Governments should offer farmers 'suitable' alternatives to growing tobacco as the 'detrimental' costs of planting tobacco far outweigh their economic benefits.

"Tobacco growing carries health, environment and socio-economical risks. Evidences show more and more farmers want to quit planting it. But you have to give them alternatives," Anne-Marie Perucic, health economist of World Health Organisation's Tobacco free Initiative, said on Thursday.

"The alternatives will vary by country," she told bdnews24.com on the sidelines of the ongoing 15th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore.

She said incidents of diseases related to the farmers' exposure to tobacco like green tobacco sicknesses are steadily increasing across the globe.

"It (tobacco cultivation) causes deforestation and contaminates water supply because of pesticides. Soil degrades because of intensive use of fertilisers for tobacco growing."

In addition, she said, cigarette butts littered anywhere are also toxic and detrimental to environment.

"You will also see unfair contractual arrangements between farmers and tobacco industries. They are trapped in vicious circle of debt and unable to get a fair price for their product.

"It also promotes child labour because tobacco growing is labour-intensive, particularly in harvesting season and most farms in developing countries are of small acreage and family-owned," she said.

In Bangladesh it is alleged that loans disbursed by tobacco companies is making more and more farmers turn to this sector.

They ignore health hazards of working in fields where these plants are cultivated.

"Even though I am suffering from various physical disorders including chest pain and breathing problems, I have to go to the tobacco field to work," Mariam Begum, a 32-year-old farmer in the northern Nilphamari district, told bdnews24.com earlier.

Visiting a tobacco factory in northern Haragach village it was found that primary school goers were making bidis (local cheaper cigarettes) amid tobacco dust.

"You cannot force upon farmers to reduce supply," the WHO economist said and that alternatives should be explored and programmes should be developed to cut demand and to support farmers wishing to switch.

She said the 2005 WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that Bangladesh ratified tells governments to keep provision of support for economically viable alternative activities.

"It also tells for protection of the environment and the health of persons."

But, Perucic said research is needed to find out alternatives, which will be different from one country to another.

She said the Ministry of Agriculture in Brazil provides technical support to rural farmers.

They provide credit with lower interest rates to agricultural families engaging in tobacco who wish to invest in other activities.

Alternative activities are very diverse there ranging from fruits, vegetables, aquaculture to animal husbandry, she said.

Kenya is promoting plantation of bamboo among small tobacco farmers. They are getting immense benefits both economically and environmentally, as it requires little investment to grow bamboo, but benefits are higher.

Tobacco growing subsidies were phased out by 2010 from European countries. Amounts moved to a tobacco fund to promote knowledge on effect of tobacco but also research on alternatives to tobacco growing.

According to latest edition of The Tobacco Atlas, countries do not profit economically from tobacco production and consumption -- in fact, they suffer great financial harm.

The health damage from a single pack of cigarettes costs US$35 to an American smoker, it said.