Tobacco Cultivation: Other Issues to Consider

Tobacco Cultivation: Other Issues to Consider
The tobacco industry likes to boast that tobacco is one of the most lucrative crops on a perhectare
basis. What it fails to mention is that tobacco is also extremely labor and input intensive.
Preparing tobacco seedlings for transplant requires weeks of watering and frequent applications
of fertilizers and pesticides. Once transplanted, the plants require yet more applications of
pesticides and fertilizers, and frequent weeding. Then the plants must be harvested and cured.
In many countries, this process requires the construction of special curing barns that use large
amounts of fuel, usually coal or firewood. After subtracting the cost of inputs (not to mention the
value of all of the family labor which is required to cultivate, harvest and cure the crop), the net
economic benefits of growing tobacco are far less than the tobacco industry would have people
believe.
Nevertheless, many farmers remain stuck in the tobacco trap. In many developing countries,
this is due to the fact that the companies provide loans, inputs and technical assistance which
are not available for other crops. Often, farmers under this type of contracting system find
themselves heavily in debt to the companies and, since the companies control the prices paid to
them, are unable to extricate themselves from tobacco cultivation. In Brazil for example, officials
predicted in 1998 that approximately 35 percent of the tobacco growers would finish the harvest
owing more money to the companies than they earned. The companies are “strangling the
growers,” according to a local official. “Each year they come up with a new way to squeeze the
growers tighter.”13