Let us Abandon Tobacco Growing

Source from:  sundayvision.co.ug 06/04/2007

ALLOW me to agree with your reader Abu Danfodio who on Wednesday wrote in support of the Vice-President who had having advised the people of the West Nile to grow other crops to replace tobacco. Prof. Gilbert Bukenya also advised the people of West Nile to undertake income-generating activities like fishing, chicken and dairy farming instead. West Nile has a number of other traditional crops like simsim and sorghum that can easily replace tobacco, a crop that has so impoverished our environment, and whose finished product ?cigarettes ?is one of the top two causes of deaths, according to the World Health Organisation. From a public health perspective (a field that our vice-president ably represents), tobacco in the long-run, is a dangerous crop that can only add to our already heavy burden of disease and misery. As Danfodio rightly observed, tobacco was a colonial crop and I feel it no longer deserves to be imposed on our people. During the many years of growing it, political leaders in West Nile have used the crop to promote their own agendas and, as a result, perpetuated the impoverishment of our people, as well as degradation of the environment, with no tangible benefits to the people. Bukenya's tour was the best possible forum to discuss these developments face-to-face with the farmers and had the best possible political clout required to drive the point home. It is a pity that some politicians from the north gave the Vice-President's tour a political twist, saying it was a waste of resources. The people in the north deserve better from their politicians, and I wish therefore, to commend the Hon. Kassiano Wadri for accompanying Bukenya on his tour of Terego County. Enditem