BRAZIL: Anti-Tobacco Measures Put Small Farmers at Risk

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 2 2005 (IPS) - Replacing tobacco with alternative crops capable of ensuring an adequate income for more than 200,000 family farms is a new challenge faced by Brazil, since it ratified the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The country is repeating “a mistake committed 117 years ago, when it abolished slavery and abandoned blacks to their fate, without opening up opportunities for subsistence and integration in society,” Romeu Schneider, secretary of AFUBRA – the association of Brazilian tobacco growers – told IPS.

That fear was behind the Brazilian Senate’s reluctance to ratify the Framework Convention, by contrast with the Chamber of Deputies, which did so in May 2004, and with the leadership role assumed by Brazil in promoting the global accord, adopted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in May 2003.

A commitment by the government to launch a crop diversification programme in tobacco-growing areas, signed by six cabinet ministers, offset the resistance in the Senate, which finally approved the treaty on Oct. 27. Brazil has until Nov. 7 to deposit the ratification instruments with the WHO.

As the world’s leading exporter of tobacco, there is no way this South American country will escape the effects of the global reduction in demand that will result from the implementation of the Framework Convention, said Minister of Agrarian Development Miguel Rossetto.

The Convention will accentuate the current decline in tobacco consumption, because the signatory countries have committed themselves to undertaking measures towards that end, such as raising prices and taxes, banning cigarette advertising and smoking in enclosed public spaces, fighting contraband of cigarettes, and providing treatment for tobacco addiction. Brazil has already taken several of these measures, such as eliminating advertising.

The crop diversification programme will provide soft loans to farmers who switch over to other crops, as well as technology and the conditions needed to market their new products, with value added, the ministers promised.

But Schneider has his doubts regarding the proposed reconversion, due to what he described as the government’s “history of unfulfilled promises,” and especially because “there are no good alternatives.”

No other crop comes close to providing the earnings that tobacco offers small farmers, he said. Six hectares of corn are needed to compensate for the income of one hectare of tobacco, according to AFUBRA. The imbalance would be similar for other crops suitable for small farms.

AFUBRA estimates that there are 236,000 tobacco growing families in Brazil, 198,000 of whom are concentrated in three southern states: Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná. The rest are in Bahía and two other states in the semiarid, impoverished northeast.

.The association puts the number of people involved in the tobacco industry at 2.4 million, including 906,000 rural workers and 40,000 cigarette industry employees. The rest work in indirectly related jobs, including commerce.

A swift decline in the number of hectares under tobacco cultivation would have a major social impact, because the government would have a hard time “guaranteeing markets and prices capable of compensating” for the shift to alternative crops, said Schneider.

Tobacco farming families have been growing the crop “generation after generation, accumulating infrastructure and know-how, and they can’t just switch overnight,” he added.

Furthermore, new restrictions like tax hikes will only fuel the contraband from neighbouring Paraguay, which already supplies “one third of the cigarettes consumed in Brazil,” said Schneider.

José Silva, a member of the “sectorial chamber of the tobacco productive chain” and the coordinator of the union of family farmers (SINTRAF) from the town of Presidente Getulio in the state of Santa Catarina, sees things in an entirely different light.

“We are in favour of the Convention,” considering the health damages caused by tobacco, the exploitative conditions suffered by tobacco workers, and the environmental problems, said Silva. He also added that besides the intensive use of toxic agrochemicals, many tobacco farmers use firewood extracted from native forests to dry the tobacco leaves.

Schneider, however, replied that tobacco farming, which offers smallholders a relatively high profit margin, prevents the deforestation caused by crops that require larger extensions of land, like soybeans.

But Silva argued that decisions of this kind cannot only be based on the earnings offered by the crop, without taking into account the costs of tobacco.

The WHO points out that smoking is the leading cause of avoidable death. A total of 1.2 billion people smoke worldwide, and smoking-related diseases claim 4.9 million lives a year – a number that could climb to 10 million by 2030 if consumption is not drastically curtailed.

In Brazil, a country of more than 184 million, around 200,000 people a year die from smoking-related causes, according to the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO).

Silva believes in the possibility of productive reconversion in tobacco farming areas, as part of a “transition process that will take at least 10 years.” But the success of the programme will depend on whether or not the government makes good on its pledge to earmark funds for financing alternative crops and promoting effective rural development, he added.

Small-scale livestock production, fruit production or sugar plantations, involving processing for added value, the production of fresh garden produce, and rural tourism are some of the promising possible alternatives, said the trade unionist.