A week ahead of the next meeting of the WHO framework convention on tobacco control (FCTC), the tobacco farmers world over have sought representation in the meeting scheduled for discussing the issue of shifting to alternative crop because of health hazards due to rising tobacco consumption.
Articles 17 and 18 of FCTC, which India is a signatory, deal with provisions related to taking up of alternative crop by tobacco growers and environmental impact of tobacco crop.
India, one of the biggest producer of Flue Cure Virginia (FCV), the finest quality tobacco used in cigarettes, has committed to cut the crop size so that a large chunk of agricultural land used for tobacco production could be used for grain production.
?Farmers are not represented at FCTC meetings and only health experts would decide the fate of millions of tobacco growers by forcing them to shift to alternate crop,? Antonio Abrunhosa, chief executive, International Tobacco Growers’ Association (ITGA), a body representing 10 million tobacco growers, told FE.
Abrunhosa said many of the key tobacco growing countries such as United States, Malawi, Argentina, Zimbabwe and Indonesia have not signed FCTC because of WHO’s body inability to articulate voice expressed by tobacco farmers. The next meeting of FCTC is slated to be held in South Korea during November 12-17.
?In the absence of representatives from tobacco industry and farmers association, FCTC meet may articulate interest of farmers who should not be forced to shift to alternate crop without providing proper rehabilitation programme,? G Kamala Vardhana Rao, chairman of the Tobacco Board, had recently said.