Kenya: Tobacco Growers Protest over Proposed WHO Ban

Source from:  Nairobi Star (ke)  11/02/2012

More than 4,500 farmers in Busia and Bungoma yesterday held demonstrations against proposals by WHO to gradually do away with tobacco farming.
 
Led by Kenya Tobacco Farmers Association chairman Augustine Amonanka and CEO, Joseph Anguchu, the farmers urged the government to reject the proposals.

 
WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control wants to impose restrictions on tobacco farming to curtail its consumption. Among these is a tax of 70 per cent on tobacco products to deter farmers from growing the crop.
 
FCTC has also proposed banning minimum support prices and leaf auctions and regulating the season in which tobacco can be grown.
 
Others are reducing areas allocated for tobacco farming, banning technical support for tobacco farmers and dismantling all bodies connecting growing with the government.
 
More than 200 farmers who demonstrated at Lupida market in Nambale district said they had joined the International Tobacco Association in defending the rights of more than 30 million farmers globally.
 
More than 40,000 farmers in Nyanza, Western and Eastern province depend on tobacco as a cash crop. Tobacco was introduced in Kenya in 1973 by BAT, by Mastermind Tobacco in 1989 and Stancom now Alliance in 2001. These companies sponsor farmers. Kenya is one of the 175 countries in the world who are signatories to the FCTC. Enditem