8m Deaths, 600m Trees Lost Annually To Tobacco Farming

A wide prevalence of tobacco use and its negative health effects, currently lead to more than eight million deaths each year worldwide and 600 million trees lost to tobacco farming, the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has stated.

This is even as he called on the federal government to incentivize farmers to quit tobacco farming.

CAPPA executive director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, who made the call at an event organised by CAPPA to commemorates World No Tobacco Day, in Lagos, said the experiences shared by former tobacco farmers from Oke-Ogun highlight the regrettable truth of how the tobacco industry often treats these crucial contributors to their global supply chain as disposables.

Oluwafemi disclosed that the field visit to Oke-Ogun painted a vivid and distressing picture of the hardships faced by the local farming community due to the decline of tobacco cultivation, adding that, these farmers, once reliant on tobacco cultivation, are now striving to adapt to a new way of life with alternative crops, such as maize, cassava, and yams.

Regrettably, they are doing so with scant resources and little support, often facing a steep learning curve, and dealing with the lack of financial aid, agricultural tools, and market connections, he averred.

“Time and time again we have underscored the harmful realities of tobacco cultivation. From cultivation which involves the use of pesticides that are harmful to tobacco growers, to the cutting and burning of trees for tobacco curing which leads to deforestation (about 3.5 million hectares of land are destroyed each year) and the use of large quantities of water to cultivate tobacco, the health of man and the ecosystem is negatively impacted, and climate resilience reduced.

Food security issues follow quickly,” Oluwafemi averred.

Another profound concern is the lingering health issues among these farmers due to years of exposure to tobacco and its associated chemicals, the executive director said, even as he disclosed that, with limited access to healthcare, these concerns remain largely unaddressed with many of these farmers resorting to inappropriate and ineffective traditional measures to manage their tobacco-induced health complications.

In view of these circumstances, Oluwafemi proposed that the federal government should provide substantial support to farmers in their transition from tobacco farming to other crops. “This could include financial aid, affordable agricultural loans and insurance products. This would give farmers the financial means to transition to new crops and protect them from unforeseen losses,” he stated.

“The federal government should investigate the disengagement contracts Nigeria signed with local tobacco farmers in view of a breach of the terms which some of the farmers alleged; support the establishment of Farmers’ cooperatives to bolster their collective bargaining power when negotiating prices for crops and insulate them against market fluctuations and support crop diversification programmes that can provide farmers with alternatives to tobacco farming.

“Adequate health services should be made available to the Oke-Ogun community, especially for the ageing population of former tobacco farmers, while focusing on the prevention and treatment of ailments related to tobacco farming,” Oluwafemi recommended.

In the same vein, the director of programmes, CAPPA, Phillip Jakpor also called on the federal government to come up with programmes that will draw the attention of tobacco farmers to other food crops with health and nutritious value that are beneficial to the health of the farmer, the community and also the ecosystem at large.

“There is a need for the federal government to help tobacco farmers with programmes that will redirect their focus to grow sustainable food crops instead of Tobacco, which is in line with this year’s theme- We need Food, Not Tobacco” he said.