Life After Tobacco: Farmers Shift to Corn

Source from:  By Yolanda Sotelo-Fuertes Northern Luzon Bureau 08/04/2008 08/04/2008

There's life after all for farmers of Santa Cecilia village here after they broke free from tobacco farming. "We were all growers of tobacco, a crop we planted after harvesting rice. We have shifted to corn as our alternate crop," says Avelino Dacanay, president of the Solidarity of Peasants Against Exploitation (Stop-Ex) and a village council member of Sta. Cecilia (pop: 1,716). Dacanay, 48, says his family used to be deeply involved in tobacco farming. At the back of the family house still stands a curing barn where tons of tobacco leaves were dried year after year. Dacanay and local farmers depended on tobacco farming but they had to stop due to the exploitative practices of traders and cigarette manufacturing companies that bought their produce. They also considered the effects of tobacco farming and cigarettes on their families' health. Today, the village's fields are teeming with corn ready to be harvested in a few days. "Yes, we earn more, and we are healthier," Jacinto Lacata, 68, says. The villagers, he says, have been surviving after they dropped tobacco farming more than five years ago. He says farmers used to be at the mercy of traders who would lend them money for inputs like seeds, pesticides and fertilizers and who bought the leaves at their own dictated prices in a practice called "contract growing." According to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines (FCAP), those who still engage in tobacco farming complain of high production cost and low selling price that leave them very little income to tide their family over until the next harvest. Some traders charge high interest rates and control the buying price as a loan condition. The FCAP says through the contract growing scheme, traders peg at P72,000 the cost of production and labor for every hectare of land planted to tobacco. But when traders deduct the cost of all agricultural inputs, only P7,800 is left as payment for the farmers' labor. "That payment is for five months of labor--from planting to harvesting the leaves or only P1,560 a month. Tobacco farming is labor intensive, you have to take care of the plant like you're taking care of a child," Evaristo Balanag, 42, says. Balanag, who is from San Simon village, remains in tobacco farming because he still owes money to traders. He says only the farmer is paid for his labor when everyone in the family--his wife and children--help in tilling the tobacco field. Those are the reasons farmers already want to break free from tobacco farming and shift to other crops like corn, he says. Fortunato Balanag, 49, says most farmers in San Simon would rather plant corn if they can get technical assistance and infrastructure support like irrigation system from the government. "We don't really benefit much, if at all, from the tobacco excise tax," says Dacanay. He says farmers have no protective gear when they apply pesticides on their plants. When drying tobacco leaves, the curing barn has to be kept in the same temperature for five days, so people in charge of this process rarely get enough sleep. The curing barn uses plenty of wood, which farmers collect from forested patches in the hills surrounding the village, Dacanay says. Of about 10 farmers interviewed by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, only one admitted to smoking. "We know smoking is hazardous to our health," says Balanag, adding that he still engages in tobacco farming because he has "no choice." The farmers say they support House Bill 3364 that asks cigarette manufacturing companies to include photographs in their products' packaging that warn smokers on the hazards of smoking. The FCAP says that HB 3364 should be certified as a priority bill because by September, the Philippines is bound to comply with its treaty obligation under the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the first public health treaty in the world. Representatives and officials of tobacco-producing provinces have opposed the passage of the bill, saying it would mean millions of tobacco farmers losing their source of livelihood. "But that's not true," Dacanay says. "Our village has proved that tobacco is not the only crop we can grow." Enditem