Grow food, not tobacco | Sunday Observer
World No Tobacco Day 2023

Grow food, not tobacco

28 May, 2023

A global food crisis is growing fuelled by conflict, Climate Change, impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine driving rising prices of food, fuel and fertiliser. A record 349 million people across 79 countries are facing acute food insecurity, many are in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), including over 30 countries on the African continent.

Many of these countries use large areas of fertile land to grow tobacco rather than healthy food. Tobacco growing countries often face a negative economic impact due to the adverse health, environmental and social impacts of growing tobacco. In many cases, foreign exchange earned from tobacco exports is used to import food that can easily be grown in those countries. Growing tobacco causes ill health among farmers and irreversible environmental loss of precious resources such as water sources, forests, plants and animal species.

Thus this year’s theme for World No Tobacco Day (May 31) is “Grow Food, Not Tobacco”. Growing and production of tobacco leads to long term, global ecological harms and Climate Change, and plays a crucial role in determining the future of agriculture and food security.

Tobacco is grown in over 125 countries as a cash crop, over an estimated area of four million hectares (ha), which is an area larger than Rwanda. The harmful effects of the cultivation on the environment are particularly apparent in LMICs.

Ending subsidies for tobacco growing

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2023 campaign will encourage Governments to end subsidies for tobacco growing and use savings for crop substitution programs that improve food security and nutrition. The campaign will also aim to raise awareness about the ways the tobacco industry interferes with attempts to substitute tobacco growing with sustainable crops, thereby contributing to the global food crisis.

World No Tobacco Day 2023 will serve as an opportunity to mobilise governments and policymakers to support farmers to switch to sustainable crops through creating market ecosystems for alternative crops and encourage at least 10,000 farmers globally to commit to shifting away from tobacco growing.

Scarce arable land and water are being used for tobacco cultivation with thousands of hectares of woods being destroyed to create space for tobacco production and to make fuel for curing tobacco leaves. Fertile land is thus being destroyed and cannot be used for growing much needed food crops.

Farmers are often under contractual arrangements with the tobacco industry and are trapped in a vicious circle of debt. The tobacco industry often fails to give farmers a fair price for their product and farmers often fail to pay back the loan in full.

The WHO global campaign will raise awareness about alternative crop production and marketing opportunities for tobacco farmers and encourage them to grow sustainable, nutritious crops. These crops will feed their families and millions more on a global scale, help them break free of the vicious debt-ridden cycle of tobacco growing, and support a healthier environment overall. The campaign will also support Governments in developing suitable policies, strategies and enabling market conditions for the tobacco growing farmers to shift to growing food crops.

Health hazards

Tobacco growing harms our health, the health of farmers and the planet’s health. The tobacco industry interferes with attempts to substitute tobacco growing, contributing to the global food crisis. Quality land is increasingly being used for tobacco growing in LMICs, reducing the amount of land that could be used for other crops.

The WHO aims to: mobilise Governments to end subsidies on tobacco growing and use of savings for crop substitution programs that support farmers to switch and improve food security and nutrition; Raise awareness in tobacco farming communities about the benefits of moving away from tobacco and growing sustainable crops; Support efforts to combat desertification and environmental degradation by decreasing tobacco farming.

As many as 1 in 4 tobacco farmers are affected by green tobacco sickness and nicotine poisoning. The disease is caused by nicotine absorbed through the skin from the handling of tobacco leaves.

Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headaches, increased perspiration, chills, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, weakness, breathlessness and more.

Tobacco farmers are exposed daily to tobacco dust and other chemical pesticides. A tobacco farmer who plants, cultivates and harvests tobacco may absorb nicotine equivalent to 50 cigarettes per day. Additionally, tobacco farmers often carry harmful substances home on their bodies, clothes or shoes, leading to secondary harmful exposures for their families, especially children.

Tobacco farmers also inhale large amounts of tobacco smoke during the curing process, which increases the risk of chronic lung conditions and other health challenges.

Tobacco farming also harms the environment. Did you know that one tree is cut down to make 15 packs of cigarettes? The WHO estimates that the tobacco industry may have cut down as many as 600 million trees. The tobacco industry annually uses 200,000 hectares of land and 22 billion tonnes of water and emits 84 million tonnes of CO2.

Negative impact

The 2022 WHO report “Tobacco: Poisoning our planet” highlights that the industry’s carbon footprint from production, processing and transporting tobacco is equivalent to one-fifth of the CO2 produced by the commercial airline industry each year, further contributing to global warming.

“Tobacco products are also the most littered item on the planet, containing over 7,000 toxic chemicals, which leech into our environment when discarded. Roughly 4.5 trillion cigarette filters pollute our oceans, rivers, city sidewalks, parks, soil and beaches every year,” says Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of Health Promotion at WHO.

Tobacco use kills one person every six seconds somewhere in the world, with up to 8 million deaths per year globally. This also includes around 600,000 deaths from passive smoking (inhalation of secondary smoke by those around the smoker). In Sri Lanka, the annual figure for tobacco-related deaths (including lung and oral cancer) is around 24,000, even though cigarette consumption has drastically come down.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Treaty was drafted with the agreement of 170 State parties to implement policies towards cessation of tobacco. This involves warning about the dangers of tobacco use, plain packaging of cigarettes, enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, and raising taxes on tobacco. Sri Lanka, which ratified the FCTC in 2003, has taken all these steps. Plain packaging with graphic cancer warnings has been rather effective in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, as even a seasoned smoker will think twice about buying a pack after seeing all those horrifying pictures.

The Government is yet to bring in laws to ban the sale of loose cigarettes (the sale of one or two cigarettes instead of the whole pack). Cigarette sales generally fall sharply when smokers are compelled to buy whole packs, as most of them cannot afford to spend around Rs.2,000 or more at once. On the other hand, anyone can spend Rs.100 or 200 to buy a couple of sticks and over a few days, one does not feel the pinch. The Government must enact his law too as soon as possible, but enforcement is admittedly difficult especially in rural areas.

It has also been reported that due to the high prices of legally manufactured cigarettes, many have turned to smuggled counterfeit brands and also the locally produced beedi and suruttu. Although the legal manufacturers use stringent quality controls, the illegal manufacturers do not bother about such niceties and their products may contain highly toxic and banned substances not found in the former category. All steps should be taken to prevent the entry of smuggled cigarettes into the country and beedi/suruttu manufacturing must be closely monitored.

Electronic cigarettes

Although not so prevalent in Sri Lanka, electronic cigarettes have become highly popular in Western countries. An electronic cigarette is an electronic device that simulates tobacco smoking. It consists of an atomiser, a power source such as a battery, and a container such as a cartridge or tank. Instead of smoke, the user inhales vapour. As such, using an e-cigarette is often called “vaping”. The atomiser is a heating element that vaporizes a liquid solution called e-liquid, which quickly cools into an aerosol of tiny droplets, vapour and air. E-cigarettes are activated by taking a puff or pressing a button.

Although touted by manufacturers as a more “healthy” alternative to conventional smoking, vaping carries the same risks as nicotine is still the primary ingredient. In addition, e-cigarettes can also contain ultrafine particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs, flavourings such as diacetyl, a chemical linked to a serious lung disease, volatile organic compounds, cancer-causing chemicals and heavy metals such as nickel, tin, and lead.

Moreover, defective e-cigarette batteries have caused fires and explosions, some of which have resulted in serious injuries. Most explosions happened when the e-cigarette batteries were being charged. Acute nicotine exposure can be toxic. Youths and adults have been poisoned by swallowing, breathing, or absorbing e-cigarette liquid through their skin or eyes. Worse, some people modify e-cigarettes to deliver drugs such as Marijuana. Also, do not fall for advertisements that proclaim that vaping can help smokers to actually quit smoking real cigarettes. On the other hand, they can get even more addicted to nicotine as a result of vaping.

The final takeaway is that both smoking and vaping are bad habits that can take many years from your lifespan. Every puff you take in has close to 7,000 chemicals, none of which is good for the human body. If even a habitual, one-pack-per-day smoker quits today, he or she can expect to live five to 10 years longer, especially if the lungs heal completely. And many more lives can be saved as a result of avoiding passive smoking. So do not let your life go up in smoke – kick the butt today itself.

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