Showing that tobacco growers are also critical of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

h/tip the Foresteirann blog for this small story. Tobacco growers, through their association the International Tobacco Growers' Association, issued a statement at the end of the ITGA's African regional meeting at the end of May. The declaration expresses opposition for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, pointing out that it was not meant to eradicate tobacco farming but its implementation has been characterised by a failure to consult adequately with growers.

You can watch the CEO of the ITGA, Antonio Abrunhosa, in televised debate here.

Smoking not a cause of health inequalities

ASH Scotland makes the astonishing discovery that poor people smoke more than wealthier people, and urges the Scottish Government to do something about it. That something is 'tackling tobacco addiction', because:

Deaths from heart disease are nearly five times higher in poorer areas, and cancer deaths almost twice as high. 

Smoking being the only thing that makes people ill. Not genetics, stress from chronically unstable living conditions, toxic working conditions – it's all caused by smoking. Top marks to Sheila Duffy for this observation:

Life expectancy, health problems, smoking rates and deaths from smoking are all markedly different between Scotland’s richest and poorest communities.

Bottom of the class for this:

To challenge health inequalities we must tackle smoking.

Suggested edit:

To bring down smoking rates we must tackle health inequalities and poverty.

Removing smoking and placing it with a cocktail of nicotine patches and whatever other illicit substance the poor might use to alleviate the worst stresses of poverty is not a route out of poverty. Smoking is a lifestyle choice/habit/addiction (whatever) associated with poverty rather than wealthier circumstances, and the best way to get the smoking rate down is to boost living standards.

Clearly this is contentious: everyone has a view about what causes poverty – what balance of circumstances and fecklessness brings people to living on the breadline. There are no easy answers.

However I can guess that ASH Scotland's sympathies would have been firmly behind Patrick Reynolds in the Al-Jazeera video, and agreed that the International Tobacco Growers Association should have been excluded from international tobacco discussions under the auspices of the World Health Organisation. In other words they have ideological sympathies with a set-up that excludes the poorest workers in the system from participation in high-level talks involving highly paid public servants and other personnel occupying influential positions in society. These talks discuss the banning of ingredients from tobacco, affecting the marketability of tobacco plants, leaving the farmers with no livelihood. Such is the sympathy of anti-tobacco for the need to alleviate poverty.

Anti-smoker interviews international representative of tobacco growers, video

Al-Jazeera presents this important interview:



They discuss the exclusion of the tobacco growers from COP-4: the recent conference of parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, declares that tobacco growers were excluded because they represent tobacco interests and they want to distract attention from the public health issues around smoking. Antonio Abrunhosa stresses that he represents growers rather than manufacturers. He points out that since the people at the Framework Convention don't understand what their International Tobacco Growers' Association is about, they should have been invited to the conference in Uruguay, and not excluded. Mr Reynolds's continued accusations that Mr Abrunhosa is funded by the tobacco industry and references to 'blood money' are rather tedious. He insists that the business of COP-4 was about public health, not the fortunes of a few small farmers, and also that nobody was planning to stop tobacco from being grown (although I think everyone is aware that the vital ingredients were to be banned, meaning that the crops could be grown but the market for them would plummet). He smiles benevolently and suggests the farmers grow corn or wheat instead of tobacco.

Riz Khan chairs this discussion without the hostility normally directed at (perceived) tobacco industry interests, and he gives Mr Abrunhosa time to expand on his organisation's concerns and hopes for the future. Mr Abrunhosa refers to the support given by many African heads of government to ITGA, against the articles brought forward to the Uruguay conference. On alternatives to tobacco as a crop, Mr Abrunhosa again refers to being excluded from COP-4. Health officials had been meant to assist in finding viable alternatives to tobacco growing, but since FCTC refuses to take information from the growers no progress has been made.

Some questions addressed to the show by email are also addressed by both sides – when the parties stop talking over each other (top prize for being ill-mannered goes to Mr Reynolds).

Enjoy the interview, and let's insist that tobacco growers are allowed more media opportunities.

Uruguay Conference (COP-4) fails to gain concensus: Philippines gets the blame

Although claiming success, the fourth Conference of the Parties, held this week in Uruguay, gained agreement in only limited areas of its agenda. According to this report, it agreed only on getting smoking cessation and training for relevant personnel to be funded by governments (and voted for support for the state of Uruguay against legal action brought against it by Philip Morris International). On the issue of government funding of smoking cessation, this is a huge diversion from existing health problems. It cannot be said to be high on the agenda of countries with major burdens in transferable disease. But now it is mandated by the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The conference failed to get agreement on the banning of ingredients, or further control of the illicit trade.

Afterwards the Framework Convention Alliance took it out on the Philippines:

According to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance, Philippines (FCAP), the COP-4 delegation of the Philippines served as the tobacco industry's mouthpiece in criticizing the draft guidelines on regulating the contents of tobacco products and requiring disclosure of tobacco products contents.

"Despite existing scientific evidence and international experience, the delegation decided to protect the interests of tobacco manufacturers, whose sole objective is to profit from the harms on the people’s health caused by tobacco use," said Dr. Maricar Limpin, FCAP executive director.    

They didn't have a consensus and so rounded on the rebels. I can't comment on the delegation in detail, however, it was headed by a delegate from the Trade & Industry department, with one Health department representative, one from Agriculture and one from the College of  Law. This was felt by  some to be 'unfair' as the Department of Health was under-represented. However since the conference was about global tobacco rules, this seems a fair enough mix to me. Law, Agriculture and Health all got a seat, and the DTI got three.

The problem of course is that the FCTC has sought to create consensus by excluding the opposition to its agenda from any meeting. Any opposition is construed as being orchestrated by the tobacco industry – even the composition of the delegation comes under criticism: '"Considering that the WHO FCTC is a public health treaty, it is inexcusable that the public health sector is severely underrepresented at this important conference." said Emer Rojas, a cancer victim and president of [New Voice Association of the Philippines].' Only domination by health department delegates will satisfy. The Philippines delegation was 'the tobacco industry's mouthpiece', and actual farmers assumed to have been organised by the tobacco industry as well.

It is good to know that there is significant disagreement even within this self-censoring organisation.

***

The COP-4 bulletin #108 (available here, foot of page) tells of Tanzania, where farmers have extricated themselves from the tobacco market: a brutal regime where sometimes they were not paid months after delivering their crops to market. Tanzania Tobacco Control Forum advised farmers to transfer to alternative crops, and enough of them did to create a glut by the end of the season. The reporter even admits that 'sesame has a market, although buyers cheat farmers by using fake scales'. (Ah: so exploitation and dailylight robbery of small farmers isn't limited to the tobacco market? Good that you picked that up!) The TTCF has arranged warehousing and advance payments for farmers, in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture. This may have removed those farmers from a very tight situation, but their analysis that tobacco is what hurts farmers is false. All small farmers and producers are vulnerable to exploitation, late payment and consequential debt problems, whatever their crop. The work of  TTCF would be valued more if it didn't limit its beneficiaries to tobacco farmers.

Edit: According to a more recent report, COP-4 recommended that 'additives used to make cigarettes more appealing to new smokers should be restricted or banned', and that governments pass legislation accordingly. Being a BBC report, it tells us that the agreement was 'adopted by consensus'. But clearly, gatekeeping is so robust at this conference (all conceivable opposition left at the door and even the composition of delegations condemned if not dominated by health interests) that consensus was inevitable.

Trade groups reject WHO guidelines on tobacco: tobacco trade unites Zimbabwe

The International Tobacco Growers' Association reports that leaders of the Asia, Pacific and Caribbean Group of States (ACP) and other major trading groups reject recommendations of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Thankfully national political leaders are defending the interests of tobacco growers in their respective countries. Story here.

The threat to tobacco livelihoods is felt so strongly in Zimbabwe that parties who have warred for the last two decades have felt the need for co-operation against the World Health Organisation's attack on the global tobacco trade. Zimbabwe's tobacco accounts for 26 per cent of GDP, and many resent losing such a contribution to the national wealth on the say-so of the World Health Organisation. An account of Zimbabwe's tobacco trade in the context of civil disturbance in the country is here (a couple of the comments are worth looking at).

You can learn more about the ITGA and sign a petition here.

World ban on tobacco ingredients threatens livelihoods

The World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control seeks to restrict global tobacco farming, and to ban certain ingredients used in blending tobacco. They meet in Uruguay next week, and this report from Zimbabwe explains how the country's economy will be hit.

A report from the Framework Alliance, an outlet supportive of the FCTC, explains that tobacco farming is really not in the interests of poor farmers (the link will also take you to the FCTC). It includes a report of the Uruguay president's resistance to 'pressure' from Philip Morris International on the issue of graphic warnings on packaging. The pressure that will be exerted on millions of farmers globally when their livelihoods are banned (as recommended by the Framework Alliance) is regarded as somehow benign by comparison.

I can't comment in detail on the agricultural economics of growing tobacco, but I can point out that it is not only tobacco companies that are opposed to the FCTC. The Framework Alliance claims that the FCTC, which includes 171 Parties, 'represents 89% of the world's population': it does not represent the farmers (link from Philippines):

In a statement, [International Tobacco Growers' Association] ITGA said that in spite of ringing the alarm bells, the ITGA’s request for 'a seat at the table' has been rejected by the WHO, who has allegedly considered farmers as 'interferences'.

'We are the people most affected by these guidelines', says Antonio Abrunhosa, CEO of the ITGA. 'Yet people with very limited understanding of how tobacco is grown are deciding on our fate at the throw of dice, without even consulting us.'

No doubt these worthy global governors believe they have done their homework: 'Articles 17 and 18 of the FCTC address economically sustainable alternatives to tobacco growing', says the Zimbabwe piece. The Framework Alliance gives the problem of economics a nod by saying 'tobacco farming does not alleviate poverty', but does not remark on the issue of how tobacco farmers should cope with a ban on their crop.

There are huge problems with this: for example the refusal to allow anyone who opposes the Convention's prohibitionist agenda to sit at the table, and a commitment to prohibition that far outstrips any concern for the livelihood of farmers, or realistic proposals to compensate them for what promises to be a devastating blow to their livelihoods. Of most concern of all is the global agenda of this juggernaut. In none of the stories do national politicians figure in this momentous issue of restricting a basic crop on which vast numbers rely.

Will national governments be expected to police bans imposed by WHO on agricultural produce? Just how expendable are these farmers' interests?