Tobacco best bet for farmers, says institute

Body accuses government report of blaming industry unfairly for loss of large scale forest cover

The exhaustive report on 'Tobacco control in India' commissioned by the Union ministry of health and family welfare of the government of India has an entrenched bias against use of tobacco, the Tobacco Institute of India (TII) has alleged.

TII feels the bias has interfered with objective analysis and presentation of facts in the report.

Tobacco, in the report, has been unfairly blamed for "large scale loss of forest cover".

The report has also alleged that "tobacco companies encourage farmers to use more chemical fertilisers and pesticides".

The report mentions that on an average 7.8kg of wood is requird to cure 1kg of tobacco.

The institute points out that the government run Central Tobacco Research Institute (CTRI) had found that the curing requirement in insulated barns was on the contrary just 2.8 to 3.1 kg per kilo of tobacco.

The report also failed to mention that less than 15 per cent of the total tobacco required fuelwood for curing.

Collaborative efforts between CTRI and tobacco processing companies have helped improve fuel efficiency and reduce dependence on fuelwood.

Around 50 per cent of FCV tobacco (110 mn kg) is cured using a fast growing waste land weed, Prosopis Julifera, which does not exert pressure on the environment.

Cost effective technologies like insulation of barns with paddy straw, ventury furnaces instead of old ones and alternative sources of fuel like solar energy and natural gas has further improved conditions.

Extensive reafforestation programmes have been undertaken by the cigarette companies and even the associated paper board companies.

The forest cover in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka has increased.

The report makes no mention of the fact that one of the leading causes of deforestation is fuelwood use for domestic cooking purposes.

If anything, the stems from tobacco plants are usually used as fuel for cooking and this was arresting further depletion of forests, said TII.

As far as pesticide usage is concerned, the institute points out that due to the absence of contract farming in FCV tobacco, there is no direct contact between the farmers and the cigarette companies except through government agencies.

If pesticide levels become excessive, the tobacco companies would stand to lose orders from highly sensitive international buyers.

Tobacco is usually grown on poor and marginal soils and in spite of that tobacco farmers for the past 80 years have been practicing multi-cropping and crop rotation.

CTRI and the Tobacco Board have also initiated model farm projects in tobacco growing regions and tray nursery seedlings to help eliminate soil borne diseases.

Vericomposting and biopesticides are also actively encouraged.

These had contributed to lower use of artificial products.

According to the institute, the report seeks to grossly downplay the significant socio-economic benefits of tobacco cultivation and production.

These benefits have been termed as "so-called benefits" and "putative economic contribution of tobacco-related activities" in the report.

The institute alleges that the importance of tobacco cultivation in the country is highlighted by the fact that farmers had found it difficult to substitute the crop as tobacco can be grown on marginal soils.

In addition, tobacco is highly labour intensive, generating employment.

By using just 0.23 per cent of the arable land, Indian tobacco farmers can earn over Rs 2000 crore of gross returns.

In terms of revenue, tobacco contributes Rs 7,000 crore in excise duties and Rs 1,200 crore in foreign exchange earnings.

The report, the institute feels, wrongly accuses the cigarette industry of citing these very socio-economic benefits of tobacco to "oppose tobacco control" and to "scale down the costs entailed by tobacco consumption".

The industry has never used these statistics in a manipulative manner, TII said.

The report makes an elaborate but flawed assessment of the healthcare costs of tobacco, feels TII.

The report cites a study by Rath and Chaudhury to estimate national costs attributable to cancer, coronary disease and chronic obstructive lung disease at Rs 308.33 billion.

This study was presented to the expert committee on the economic of tobacco use.

Some committee members had raised objections on the findings of a study with as small a target size as 1146 people, confined to a particular location.

The findings were however extrapolated to the entire country.

From a sample size group of 195, the costs of tobacco related cancer was analysed, but 43 patients, or a quarter of them, did not consume tobacco.

The average cost incurred by tobacco consumers was said to be Rs 16,274.20, much lower than Rs 18,392.20 that of people who had never consumed tobacco.

Such details, the institute feels, were very conveniently ignored. The study the institute claimed had, never been exposed to a peer review.