Chinese Tobacco Industry Talks up Investment in Agriculture, Critics Unimpressed

Source from:  Xinhua August 06, 2007 08/07/2007

China's tobacco industry has invested between 50 and 65 billion yuan in helping tobacco farmers over the 21 years from 1985 to 2006, according to the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA), but health experts argue the figure is far from sufficient. Since 1985, the tobacco industry has invested between two billion and seven billion yuan each year in agriculture to help lift farmers out of poverty, an STMA report claimed. The report pointed to the 2.67 billion yuan channeled by the Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Bureau into local irrigation systems for tobacco farmers. It also cited Xu Xueliang, a tobacco farmer in Luliang county, more than 100 km east of Yunnan's capital Kunming, as saying, "In the past, we had to fetch water from a place five km away using an ox and cart. It's much more convenient now as we can get water from the tap right in the middle of the farmland." The report did not impress health professionals such as Zhi Xiuyi, director of the Tobacco Control and Lung Cancer Department in the Cancer Foundation of China. "The STMA stated this year that the daily tax revenue of the tobacco industry was nearly 800 million yuan, excluding imported cigarettes. Thus the investment is only a small part of the huge profits made by the tobacco industry. The STMA should not be proud of it," Zhi said. "The government should invest more money accrued from the tobacco tax in the public health system and medical research," he added. The STMA report said that local branches of the STMA and tobacco companies had helped improve farmers' planting technologies, including demonstrating how to pick and roast tobacco leaves. In Guizhou and Hubei provinces, a disaster-relief fund has been set up for tobacco farmers affected by natural disasters. "I think the research is no more than propaganda from the tobacco industry but the investment is beneficial for tobacco farmers at least," said Sun Zhenbo, a 42-year-old smoker. According to official figures, China has more than 350 million smokers, the largest in the world. "About one million people die of diseases associated with smoking each year in China," Henk Bekedam, World Health Organization representative in China, said in May. "The number may rise to 2.2 million before 2020 if the smoking rate does not decline," said Bekedam. Enditem