'Tobacco Good for RDP'

Source from:  pretorianews.co.za 29 March 2007 02/25/2008

The department of health says smoking is bad for health, but one parastatal still maintains tobacco production is a good way to contribute to reconstruction and development. It even puts out a quarterly magazine for producers titled Tobacco Focus, and has published a book on how to grow the crop. The Agricultural Research Council (ARC), which gets just over R480-million from the public purse in 2007, says on its website it is committed to promoting tobacco production through research and development. This, it says, is "in order to optimise the role of ARC-IIC with respect to reconstruction and development in the RSA". The IIC is its Institute for Industrial Crops, the division that deals with tobacco. ARC spokesperson Nkami Sithole said all research the ARC conducted on behalf of the tobacco industry was paid for "in full" by the industry itself. "The industry pays full costs including salaries of personnel allocated to the contracts as well as overhead costs," she said. The ARC was currently funding one tobacco project itself: a transfer of technologies to small-scale farmers, with a budget of less than R310 000. South Africa has some of the most advanced tobacco control legislation in the world, and this will become even tougher when amendments approved by the National Assembly on Thursday are signed into law. The changes were drawn up partly to bring South Africa in line with the 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the first international treaty on a health issue. A key clause in the convention is a call on signatory governments - including South Africa - to "aid the economic transition of tobacco growers". One way of doing this is through crop substitution or diversification - encouraging farmers to switch from tobacco to crops such as cotton that grow under similar conditions. Sethole, questioned about the convention, said the ARC had not considered discontinuing its tobacco-related activities "as the tobacco sector is still a legitimate part of the agricultural spectrum in [South Africa]". "However it does support the industr[y's] efforts to be a responsible role player with regards to utilisation of tobacco products." She also said she was not aware of an approach to the ARC from the health department or anyone else to express concern about its tobacco programme. Dr Derek Yach, who, as a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official played a key role in the framework convention, recalled that in the early 1990s, when he was attached to South Africa's Medical Research Council, the MRC did in fact meet the ARC in a bid to push the notion of crop diversification. He said that since the early 1990s, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had shifted from an ambivalent position on tobacco farming to one where it would fund diversification, but no longer offered grants or loans for tobacco growing. If it was correct that the ARC was still supporting tobacco production, it was clearly against the spirit of the convention, Yach said. The Tobacco Institute of South Africa (Tisa) said it saw no contradiction between the health department's agenda and the ARC's activities. "Although the health fraternity is fighting tobacco, tobacco will not disappear for decades to come," said Tisa chief executive Francois van der Merwe, himself a tobacco farmer. "So, while the use of tobacco products continues, it is of the utmost importance that research on tobacco continues to ensure the industry moves forward." This research in fact indirectly assisted the department of health "through for example research that is aimed at reducing the use of chemicals in tobacco growing therefore making it a safer product". Van der Merwe said there was no "specific drive" for substitution in South Africa. "There are calls globally from the World Health Organisation for crop diversification and alternatives to the growing of tobacco, but even the WHO realises that this is no simple matter." Crop diversification was not something that could be forced. "If any other crop appeals more to a farmer for whatever reason, such a farmer will move away from tobacco production for pure business reasons," van der Merwe said. Enditem