World No Tobacco Day: Why alternative farming should be incentivised

 

As the global community celebrates World No Tobacco Day, PAUL OMOROGBE looks at the challenges faced by farmers left adrift by tobacco companies after divesting from tobacco farms and the need for the Federal Government to encourage farmers to grow crops that will boost food sufficiency.

Olayemi Ogunlade is a tobacco farmer in Orire Local Government Area of Oyo State. He says tobacco farming isWe  a business that has been in his family for generations. “I grew up to see my father doing it. This is something my fathers have been doing for generations.”

Ogunlade said his farm, which is about three acres, is used to farm the local variety of tobacco.

According to him, his clients are individuals who use the local variety for medicinal purposes.

“We don’t sell to companies. We have individuals who buy our tobacco for use for medicine. We don’t have buyers who use tobacco for cigarettes.”

Ogunlade claimed that there are up to 30 others like him in Orire who are into tobacco farming.

Tobacco farming in Nigeria

Tobacco farming has been a big business for many years in Nigeria. Records show that tobacco is farmed majorly in Oyo State.

The industrial farming of tobacco in Nigeria predates its independence. The introduction of commercial tobacco farming in the Oyo North area of the state came under the aegis of the Nigerian Tobacco Company (NTC). NTC was known for its popular brands like Benson & Hedges, State Express among others.

The influence of NTC on farmers in Oyo-North in the 1960s was widespread. A researcher, Ademola Babalola did a study titled ‘Agro-Industrial Tobacco Production and Farmers in Igboho, Oyo-North Division, Oyo State, Nigeria,’ published in 1987. In the study, he stated that “Virtually all the communities in the Oyo North division grow flue-cured tobacco under the auspices of the Nigerian Tobacco Company.”

The same study states that “Research carried out in 1982-1983 showed that a large proportion of tobacco farmers had lived outside Nigeria and that many of them would have left Igboho to seek their fortune elsewhere but for the introduction of tobacco farming.”

The study notes that, “however, their (farmers) subordination to the control of the Nigeria Tobacco Company (NTC) precariously ties their well-being to the dynamics and vagaries of the market for flue-cured tobacco and the conditions of production stipulated by the NTC.”

Another study was published almost a decade ago titled “The reality of tobacco farmers exploitation in a region in Nigeria” by Eniola Cadmus of the Nigeria Tobacco Control Research Group (NTCRG)

In that study, the commentators – Tumi Ajayi, Tomi Iken, Phillip Jakpor, Akinbode Oluwafemi, and Akindele Adebiyi revealed that “although the tobacco farmers often received support from the Industry to grow tobacco, they were also forced to sell their products with minimal margins of profit to the same tobacco companies since the leaves cannot be sold in open markets in Nigeria. Furthermore, there is a market monopoly as only one company buys the product, further reducing the farmers bargaining power.”

Tobacco farming in Oyo North today

To understand the tobacco trade better, the Nigerian Tribune visited Okeho, a community in Oyo North that is known for tobacco farming. Before the visit, locals said that finding tobacco farmers in the area is now difficult as many former tobacco farmers have left tobacco farming due to health concerns.

On the way, Nigerian Tribune inquired from a woman selling fruits by the roadside where tobacco farmers could be found. She responded by saying that those involved were getting aged and passing away.

After several kilometres, the Nigerian Tribune finally found a small farm in a place called Ilua where tobacco was farmed.

The farmer there, Ramonu Fasasi, said he used to sell his produce to a tobacco company before the company stopped doing business with him and other farmers in the area.

“We used to sell to White people (referring to foreign tobacco company workers) before they left.”

According to him, he had been a tobacco farmer for up to 30 years while his father had been farming tobacco for about 40 years for a tobacco company.

He added that he was paid some amount of money as the company was leaving some four years ago.

He said there were only about six farmers left in the area.

“Now we sell to some middle men from the Southeast parts of Nigeria.

He noted that if the government supports him and other farmers to plant food crops, he would do it alongside tobacco farming.

Ramonu’s father, Bakare Fasasi, an octogenarian, said he was into tobacco farming before introducing his son to it. According to him, they had been in the business for up to 40 years.

The Nigerian Tribune encountered another individual in Ilua who said he used to be a tobacco farmer until when the tobacco company that was their offtaker pulled out.

Gabriel Ojebisi, 51 years old, said that “I am a farmer. I grow cassava, soya beans and maize. I don’t plant tobacco. But I do recall that while I was a teenager my father did. Tobacco farming is more profitable than crop farming to be honest.”

He however added that “The government told us that tobacco had health implications.”

According to him, farmers in the area used to plant tobacco for NTC initially and then British American Tobacco (BAT) until recently when the latter pulled out allegedly due to claims of heavy taxes from the government.

He said that government support for food farming was not getting to farmers in the area. “I can categorically say that agricultural support for food farming does not reach us here. We want that to change. Government intervention in agriculture should get to those of us in the farms and not those in the offices.”

At Ilero, another location in Okeho, the Nigerian Tribune, met an aged man, Alhaji Salami Fasasi, known in his community as one of the bigtime tobacco farmers of yore. He spoke of the glory days of tobacco farming when he was younger.

“I was in my twenties when I started tobacco farming. So I have been farming tobacco for 50 years.

“We were up to 40 farmers planting tobacco, but today no one does it anymore. I cultivate maize now.

“Then I planted up to 10 acres,” Fasasi said.

Planting tobacco stopped when, according to him, the tobacco company that engaged farmers in the community pulled out due to what they said was “high taxation” and “left for Ghana.” He said this happened about four years ago.

“As young men, we used to go to Iseyin to sell our tobacco. We faced tobacco farming squarely. We did not plant food crops. I received N600,000 when the tobacco company left. We are not used to cultivating cassava.”

He added that although he had taught his children how to cultivate tobacco, the younger generation was not interested in it.

“They have jobs in the cities. They will not leave those jobs to come and cultivate tobacco here,” he said.

The farmers lamented that they were not getting enough revenue from alternative crops hence they would jump at the opportunity to go back to tobacco farming if any tobacco company approached them. They frowned at the lack of incentives from the government to expand on their cassava and maize farms and inability to access loans that could make them transit from subsistence to large scale farms to boost their economic well being.

The Nigerian Tribune visited the BAT Nigeria facility in Ibadan to inquire about how the company sources tobacco leaves since it is still in production. This reporter was asked to direct all inquiries to the British American Tobacco Foundation office in Lagos instead.

World Tobacco Day 2023

May 31 annually is the day the World Health Organisation (WHO) and public health champions around the world come together to mark World No Tobacco Day (WNTD). This year’s theme is “We need food, not tobacco”.

According to WHO, the 2023 global campaign aims to raise awareness about alternative crop production and marketing opportunities for tobacco farmers and encourage them to grow sustainable, nutritious crops.

It will also aim to expose the tobacco industry’s efforts to interfere with attempts to substitute tobacco growing with sustainable crops, thereby contributing to the global food crisis.

The 2023 WNTD campaign calls on governments and policy-makers to step up legislation, develop suitable policies and strategies, and enable market conditions for tobacco farmers to shift to growing food crops that would provide them and their families with a better life.

Need to incentivise food crop farming

A team from Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), an environment-focused NGO that recently visited tobacco-growing communities in Oyo State to interact with farmers and see firsthand what the environment looked like.

Akinbode Oluwafemi, Executive Director of CAPPA, said: “Indeed, our field visit to Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State is our own way of obtaining first-hand information on what farmers experience as a foundation to supporting them to make the right demands.

“This visit painted a vivid and distressing picture of the hardships faced by the local farming community due to the decline of tobacco cultivation. With BATN’s sudden disengagement from Oke Ogun, former tobacco farmers are left with no option but to venture on the path to sustainable alternatives without support.”

His position was reiterated by Philip Jakpor, CAPPA director of programmes, who said that the decision of BAT Nigeria to quit Oke Ogun where it sources its raw materials raises suspicion that the company might be getting leaves from elsewhere while it still references its huge farmer base in Oyo as basis for getting incentives from the Nigerian government

Following the visit, CAPPA made certain recommendations to the new federal government administration at an event in Lagos to mark the World No Tobacco Day 2023.

According to Oluwafemi, the federal government should “provide substantial support to farmers in their transition from tobacco farming to other crops. This could include financial aid, affordable agricultural loans and insurance products. This would give farmers the financial means to transition to new crops and protect them from unforeseen losses.”

The government should also “compel BAT Nigeria to carry out a verifiable afforestation programme in the entire Oke Ogun axis to make up for decades of depleted ecosystem.”

He added that the government should “support crop diversification programmes that can provide farmers with alternatives to tobacco farming,” and “invest in local infrastructure such as irrigation systems, storage facilities, and transportation networks to aid the farming community. This would allow farmers to cultivate their crops more efficiently and facilitate access to markets and improve the bargaining power of farmers.”