As the American tobacco industry has fallen with the overwhelming evidence of smoking’s negative health implications, the rise in international tobacco production competition, the mounting social taboo of smoking, as well a shift away from the government’s Depression-era tobacco quota system of subsidies, tobacco farmers have had to come up with new ways to earn a living. This situation has, ironically, constructively contributed to the sustainable agriculture movement, causing some tobacco farmers to convert their land and livelihoods into more sustainable enterprises that move away from growing tobacco.

Sami Grover of Treehugger framed the transition for tobacco farmers in a positive light concluding, “…it seems that the crises faced by many traditional agricultural sectors are also an opportunity for innovation. Given the potential for agroecology to increase global food production, it seems that the notion of ‘get big or get out’ is starting to feel a little out dated. ‘Get nimble, or get out’ might be more appropriate.”

Organizations like the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI-USA) has played a significant role in facilitating this very type of innovation. Take for example, the previously tobacco-centered farming community of Rockingham County, NC, which has come up with creative solutions that foster more enduring, sustainable local businesses that provide a substitute to tobacco production.

Many farmers there have received assistance from RAFI’s Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund (TCRF), a program that helps farmers build alternative sources of agricultural income via cost-share grants. The goal, they say, is to “keep farmers in farming.” North Carolina farmers are eligible for $10,000 individual grants or $30,000 collaborative farmer project community grants. Priority is given to initiatives that offer opportunities for a new generation of farmers as well as those who made income from tobacco during the time of the Master Settlement Agreement.

Piedmont Local Food (PLF) has been in partnership with RAFI through their TCRF program for two years, working as an online farmers market that brings in local growers and creates new markets such as restaurants and buying clubs for these farmers to sell their goods.

One NC farmer who received a TCRF community grant was Paul Marshall of River Birch Vineyards, who organized the Triad Fruit Growers and set up a processing facility for local fruit producers to make juices and value-added fruit products to sell on the local market.

Worth Kimmel of Pine Trough Branch Farm, was a recipient of an individual grant and used the money to install a solar powered pump and fencing system that aids the rotational intensive grazing of his cattle.

The USDA’s Tobacco Transition Payment Program, also known as the “tobacco buyout”, which started in 2004 pays tobacco producers and quota holders through 2014 to transition to other agricultural production or out of the tobacco industry (these payments don’t come from taxpayer dollars, but rather from tobacco manufacturers and importers).

Tobacco auctions on 11 floors in Prakasam district have been disrupted as farmers have kept away, but auctions are continuing on nine floors in other districts, according to Mr C.V Subba Rao, the Executive Director of the Tobacco Board. Farmers did not want to participate due to low prices. He told reporters here on Tuesday that efforts were being made to resume transactions. “We are in touch with the trade and we have explained the point of view of the farmers to the trade as well as the peculiar circumstances which led to the crisis in the district.”

“Heavy rains in the district damaged the crop twice and farmers had to go in for plantation twice. It increased the cost of cultivation and the yields had also gone down, compounding the problem. To an extent, the leaf chemistry was also affected,” he said.

He said that in view of these problems, the Tobacco Board had requested the trade to support the farmers. “We are awaiting the response of the trade. Meanwhile, the State Government has also released Rs 20 crore to two co-operatives to enter the market and shore up the price level,” he said.

Mr Rao said that the trade had submitted that export orders had not been received till now and therefore the situation in the international market was not very encouraging. He said 57.71 million kg of tobacco had so far been sold on the floors in Andhra Pradesh at an average price of Rs 112.19 a kg against 91.17 million kg during corresponding period last year at an average price of Rs. 98.63 a kg.

Mr Subba Rao said that on the whole the situation was not as gloomy as projected, but there was definitely a problem in Prakasam district. “We are making all efforts to resolve it and bring some relief to the farmers in that district hit by natural calamities,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Kandula Narayana Reddy, legislator from Markapur (Ongole), has launched a hunger strike along with some other farmers in Podili, demanding remunerative prices for tobacco farmers. “The Tobacco Board promised farmers that they would get Rs 124 a kg. But they were getting just Rs 90-93, far less than the cost of production,” he told Business Line over phone from the dharna site.

“We have asked the Board to help cooperative societies to buy tobacco in order to encourage competition in tobacco purchases. But they sanctioned Rs 10 crore for this purpose, which is inadequate.

The Board should use the Rs 250-crore fund it has under its disposal to stimulate competition,” he said.

In the absence of competition, corporate houses were unilaterally fixing prices, leaving the farmers in losses.

A father of a friend is dying of lung cancer. He remembers the bad old days when tobacco manufacturers used very persuasive advertising to get people, some of them youths, to smoke. An elegant car, well-dressed man, a pretty lady, lights of the city, a cigarette in the mouth! He wishes fervently he had not fallen for that glamour. Things have now changed. Now cigarette companies, as a rule, never promote or encourage young (or indeed older) people to consume tobacco products.

Tobacco advertising is widely banned, and manufacturers have fallen in line. Indeed on cigarette packets dire warnings are printed, pointing out that smoking can kill. Thus those who choose to smoke are well aware where their choice can lead.

But there are, as is always the case, various stakeholders involved. Here, governments and their treasuries, tobacco farmers and their families, and the tobacco companies. All need a fair hearing regarding issues concerning the industry, particularly regarding regulation. Farmers, for example, are acquainted with safety measures by the companies they partner, and who provide the required protective gear.

Also, for example, using child labour is heavily discouraged, as is the use of natural forests for fuel. Over the past decade or so, farmers have enough wood fuel by planting their own trees, aided mainly by tobacco manufactures.

As the world celebrates No Tobacco Day on May 31, the farmers and their dependants face a big threat to their livelihoods as activists call for ever stronger restrictions on the industry. Some of the concerns are valid, but they must be balanced with the legitimate need for farmers to look after themselves and their families.

I am a non-smoker. But having worked for a quarter century as a Board Director of British American Tobacco, Uganda, I am fully witness to the improvement in their daily bread of those 30,000 farmers and their families, with which BAT works as partner.

I have visited all the main growing areas and seen with my own eyes. Let us apply fair balance.

You can order cigarettes from the best European tobacco shop online. Just buy cigarettes that you like.

Half a dozen disgruntled tobacco farmers blocked shipments from leaving a Tillsonburg processing plant Thursday, demanding they get paid $6.6 million before they allow it to leave. Despite the word of True Blend tobacco company co-owner Grant Sanders, who claims the farmers are being paid, four farmers sitting in trucks outside the Highway 3 plant claim they haven’t received a cent since Sept. 23, 2010.

“We haven’t been paid by True Blend,” said one of the farmers, who refused to give his name.

He said the 64 farmers owed millions of dollars for supplying tobacco should have been paid within five days of delivery, but nearly five months later they’ve seen none of the money.

The farmer and his peers said they have no idea why they haven’t been paid.

“That money has gone somewhere, but we don’t know where,” he said. “Money has been made on the sale of our tobacco, but none of it has reached us.”

Since last fall, at least a few of the farmers owed by True Blend have showed up at the plant on a near daily basis to demand payment.

On Thursday, they told the drivers of two trucks about to leave the plant with a load of processed tobacco to stay put.

“None of them are leaving until we get our money,” said the farmer as he smoked a cigarette in the driver’s seat of a silver truck.

Behind them, at the north end of the large white processing plant, a tractor trailer sat idling, apparently respecting the farmers’ wishes.

Another farmer pointed to another trailer sitting at the edge of the wet, muddy lot outside True Blend. He said the truck is full of tobacco, but left there as a result of their protest.

Contrary to rumours circulating in the community, the farmers say there was no physical altercation that took place during their day-long blockade of the plant.

“We know some of the people who work here,” said a farmer in the backseat. “We’re not after them. They’re just workers. We just want to get paid.”

The farmers say they told the workers not to load another trailer, a demand they supposedly honoured.

“No one wants to cross an imaginary picket line,” said the first farmer.

The tobacco growers insisted they will be back on Friday unless they get paid.

“We’re screwed if we don’t get paid,” he said.

Meanwhile, in an interview on Wednesday, Sanders claimed the “farmers are getting paid” on behalf of his True Blend co-owners Brian Poreba and Victor Osztrovics.

While the operation has faced technical and financial hardships this past season, the facility is now up and running, Sanders said. He claims that millions of dollars have been paid out so far.

However, True Blend growers were told to seek legal counsel during a special meeting held by the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Marketing Board on Monday, according to chair Fred Neukamm.

The impacted growers may decide to collectively launch a lawsuit to recoup some of their losses.

The new contract system has tied the hands of the tobacco board. Under the new system, individual contracts are struck up between each buyer and each grower, Neukamm explained. This limits the ability of the board to collectively represent growers when contracts go awry.

While the board has a performance bond with the buyer, some farmers may not be interested in cashing it. The reportedly $2 million bond would hardly put a dent in their losses, farmers said. Cashing it could also supposedly pose problems for the company.

“It is widely believed that it would cause insolvency and bankruptcy,” Neukamm said.

When asked if True Blend is facing bankruptcy, Sanders denied the claim.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “They (True Blend) have tremendous equity coming in on time.”

Neukamm wouldn’t confirm if True Blend has applied for licensing for this coming season. However, he said that it was “very unlikely” that any buyer who failed to meet its commitments from a prior year would have its licence renewed.

A major tobacco insurance fraud ring involving Rocky Mount farmers has been broken. Local tobacco farmers and insurance agents have pleaded guilty to being part of a scheme in which the farmers fraudulently claimed crop losses, collected insurance money from a federal program but then profited from selling their tobacco harvest.

Roy Johnson Raynor, 56, the owner of Raynor Warehouse Inc., has been sentenced to one year in federal prison for brokering the deals, buying the tobacco from the farmers and then selling it to Universal Leaf North America and other buyers, according to a press release from the office of the U.S. Attorney Eastern District of North Carolina.

According to the release, Raynor facilitated the sale of $1.4 million in “hidden” tobacco from September 2005 to March 2009.

“The farmers profited from the scheme as they were paid twice for each pound of tobacco, once through the false crop insurance claim and once through the sale of the ‘hidden’ tobacco,’” the release states.

On Jan. 13, Raynor pled guilty to conspiring to make a false statement, to making a material false statement and to committing mail and wire fraud. After his prison term, he will serve two years supervised release, with the first 12 months of supervised release to be under house arrest. U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III also ordered him to pay a fine of $100,000. According to a press release, Raynor received a significant sentence reduction based upon his cooperation with law enforcement.

“Raynor would pay the co-conspiring farmers with checks, concealing the source of money by issuing the check in amounts less than $10,000 so as to evade federal reporting requirements,” the release states.

In an interview Tuesday, Raynor said he had no involvement with filing fraudulent insurance claims.

“I don’t know anything about the insurance part of it,” he said. “I don’t have any knowledge of insurance as far as the process. I have never met with insurance adjusters. All I do is sell tobacco and make a commission. I have never gained financially by anything the farmers did as far as insurance.”

As a tobacco broker, he sells the crop for farmers to buyers and receives a commission. He said he disagrees with the press release statement that he first bought the tobacco from the farmers before selling it.

He said his only mistake was writing out checks after the sale in the fashion that farmers requested, such as in the names of other family members instead of the farmers themselves.

“I always ask: How do you want me to write the check? I didn’t think it was wrong. It was their money,” he said. “But according to the law, that’s called structuring, which I know now. I didn’t gain financially by it.”

Raynor said the farmers didn’t report the sale of the tobacco, but he never tried to conceal anything.

“I had the names (of the people) that I wrote the checks to, and I reported my income based on my commissions of what I sold (for) the farmer and paid the farmer,” he said. “That’s what I paid taxes on.”

So far, none of the farmers are facing prison time, but they have not all been sentenced.

The farmers who authorities said were involved in the fraud were Donald Keith Davis, 53, of Sharpsburg, Robert Sammy Tant, 60, of Rocky Mount and Vernon L. Rhodes of Rocky Mount. The age of Rhodes was not made available.

Davis could not be reached for comment. Rhodes said he was not interested in commenting.

In July, Davis and Tant pleaded guilty to making false statements, committing mail and wire fraud and making false statements in connection with the Federal Crop Insurance Program.

Davis and Tant were facing up to 30 years in prison for the charges they pleaded guilty to, a press release in July stated.

However, Tant has been sentenced to five years probation, a fine of $10,000 and restitution in the amount of $119,739.

Tant said he takes responsibility for his part in the case.

“I can say that my part in it was real small, and I was not even aware of what was going on at the time,” he said. “I just trusted my insurance adjuster. But I accept responsibility for any part I had in it. … I made a mistake dealing with someone else. I’m not a CPA. I’m not an insurance agent. Sometimes, you put faith in the hands of other people and they can drag you into some of their mess.”He said he believes the judge was fair in the case.

“The court system treated me very fairly and they listened to what I had to say,” he said. “That is why the judgement came out like it did. (The judge) was very lenient towards me.”

Davis and Rhodes are scheduled to be sentenced on March 7.

According to the U.S. Attorney office, Tant also conspired with insurance agent, Robert Carl Stokes, who has been sentenced to 30 months of detention, with the first 18 months in home confinement.

Stokes, along with Wilson resident Mark Pridgen, an officer in Tobacco Insurance Agency Inc., have been ordered to pay $16.5 million in restitution.

Nash County Extension Director Charlie Tyson said he knew some of the farmers involved in the fraud ring.

“I’m sad for these guys and disappointed at the same time,” he said.

Tyson said the federal insurance program is critical to help local farmers when their crops don’t pan out.

It’s unclear how much money was fraudulently paid out by the Federal Crop Insurance Corp.

USDA spokeswoman Shirley Pugh said she could not comment on that issue, as it is an ongoing criminal case.

Robin Zier, spokeswoman for the United States Attorney Eastern District of North Carolina office, also would not comment about the insurance losses.

“That’s not public record,” she said.

Tobacco farmers are making the shift to other crops due to high premiums and lack of information on crop insurance. Mr Joseph Etyang from Teso North District said he abandoned the crop after spending more on premiums than what he got from the harvest. “It does not make sense to pay premiums that cannot be recouped due to low returns,” said Mr Etyang.

Another farmer, Mr James Ayeso, decided to continue with tobacco farming, but opted to do without insurance against poor weather and disease.

However, BAT Kenya leaf operations manager James Opiyo said that farmers’ response to the insurance scheme, which is in its second year, has been remarkably positive.

Mr Opiyo said that the company negotiated a favourable premium rate based on crop value with UAP Insurance.

He said the tobacco firm pays this premium on behalf of the farmers as a loan which is only recovered later from tobacco sales without any interest being charged.

Mr Opiyo also noted that the company had a strong afforestation programme that has been running since tobacco growing began in Kenya.

“Apart from ensuring security of supply of wood for curing the tobacco, the programme contributes to environmental conservation and economic empowerment of farmers who engage in commercial tree farming,” he adds.

Conserve environment

This was in response to claims by a civic leader that little effort was being put in place by players in the industry to conserve the environment.

“Farmers are cutting down trees to cure their leaves,” Mr Jack Wambulwa, the Bukhayo North councillor, lamented. BAT has contracted 1,700 farmers in the greater Teso District.

Mr Joseph Kamiri of UAP said farmers’ whose crop was affected by disease and bad weather last year were compensated.

This autumn has not been kind to burley tobacco farmers in Kentucky and Tennessee, the top two burley-producing states in the U.S. With some buyers beginning to make their purchases Tuesday, the season could turn out to be disappointing financially as a dry spell has hurt the quality of some leaf stored for curing before going to market. Ideally, the post-harvest curing process gradually changes long green burley tobacco leaves to a dark reddish brown tint amid cycles of dry and moist conditions. This year, the drought — combined with hot temperatures for much of the fall — left some tobacco with an undesired light tan color as the burley dried too fast in barns.

That pigmentation problem, plus average yields, could result in lost income when growers take their crop to market.

“It’s not a good picture,” said Bob Pearce, a University of Kentucky extension tobacco specialist. “It’s pretty murky. A lot of them could be facing at best a break-even and at worst they could be losing on this crop.”

Rain fell in both states Tuesday, offering some help for tobacco producers, but “it’s probably going to be too little, too late for a lot of the crop, unfortunately,” Pearce said.

Kentucky is the nation’s top producer of burley tobacco, a common ingredient in cigarettes. In October, the USDA forecast leaf production of 185.7 million pounds across burley-producing states, down 14 percent from last year. Kentucky’s production is expected to be 136.8 million pounds, 15 percent below 2009.

Tennessee, which trails only Kentucky in burley production, is expected to produce 26.3 million pounds of burley this year, down about 2 percent from last year, according to the USDA.

The period from August to mid-November was one of the driest on record in Kentucky in more than a century, said Tom Priddy, a UK extension agricultural meteorologist, citing preliminary data.

It’s the third time since 2007 that Kentucky burley growers have struggled through an autumn dry spell that complicated curing.

The exception was 2009, when farmers had a fairly good crop despite a curing season that was too wet. Tobacco companies snatched up “a good bit” of drought-stressed leaf grown in 2007 and 2008, Pearce said. Whether they’ll do the same, and at what price, in coming months is an uncomfortable question hanging over many growers.

“There is some good tobacco out there, I just don’t know how much,” Pearce said. “There’s some poor-quality tobacco out there. It’s just how good is that in-between tobacco and whether or not we’re going to be able to sell it.”

Most burley farmers sell leaf under contracts with tobacco companies. Altria Group Inc. division Philip Morris USA, the nation’s top cigarette maker, started buying Kentucky burley on Tuesday, said company spokesman Ken Garcia. Companies can reject tobacco that doesn’t meet quality specifications.

“It’s been a tough curing season. We depend on the weather and it’s been low humidity and it’s a pretty dry crop,” said Barry Sims of the Highland Rim Research and Education Center in Springfield, Tenn. “We’d like for it to be darker and it’s lighter than we’d like.

“We’re expecting the worst but hoping for the best.”

In Kentucky, the problem for many burley farmers didn’t start until the drought hit late in the growing season and stretched into the curing process, Pearce said.

Some growers tried to offset the drought by closing barn vents and spraying water on the floors to increase humidity inside the barns, Pearce said.

“They’ve made some tremendous efforts to try to improve the quality,” he said. “But it remains to be seen whether or not those efforts are going to pay off.”

David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds American Inc.-owned R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., said the maker of such brands as Camel cigarette and Pall Mall cigarette has kept tabs on the weather. He said the company’s approximately 1,000 contract growers in Kentucky have worked hard through a “challenging season.”

“We fully intend to meet our contract obligations with all of our burley growers in Kentucky,” he said.

Garcia, at Philip Morris USA, said the contracts set out a “pretty strict process” that take “some of the subjectivity” out of evaluating leaf delivered by its farmers.

“As long as the growers meet those contractual obligations around quality, then obviously we’ll honor those contracts and buy that tobacco,” Garcia said.

Philip Morris USA, maker of the Marlboro cigarettes brand, plans to buy millions of pounds of leaf this year from thousands of Kentucky farmers, he said.

Urambo. Tobacco peasants here have increased their earnings from Sh41 billion to Sh76.8 billion in a period of only one year. The acting district Agricultural, Livestock and Cooperative officer, Mr John Mtesigwa, said tobacco peasants in the district have almost doubled their earnings in one year and made the crop to be the most paying. Elaborating, he said tobacco peasants harvested a total of 15 million kilos which earned them Sh41.1 billion at the average of Sh2,500 per kilo during financial year 2008/09.

The following financial year of 2009/10 peasants increased production from 15 million kilos to 23.7 million kilos which earned them Sh76.8 billion, increasing their annual income by more than Sh30 billion, he said.

Mr Mtesigwa noted also that the income which peasants got from their produce has helped them to improve their lives.

“Tobacco peasants in the district have earned a lot of money from the crop which has helped them to better their lives… now they have better life than before,” he said.

Apart from peasants earnings more money from tobacco, Mr Mtesigwa said the crop has also made the council to receive more cess.

He explained that the council has benefitted from the crop by receiving cess amounting to more than Sh1.2 billion this year from less than average of Sh400 million in the past four years.

He said the district has set the target of harvesting 26 million kilos of tobacco by 2012 adding that they have also put strategies to ensure that the target was realised.

Urambo is one of districts which leads in the country in the production of tobacco.

For years, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and his allies have sought to drive white farmers from their land, and the farmers have fought back through the courts. In recent weeks, the World Health Organization has managed to bring the two warring camps together by attacking one of their few shared interests: tobacco. The WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control seeks to cut global production and demand for a crop that is the lifeblood of Zimbabwe’s economy—accounting for 26% of gross domestic product in 2009, according to the Ministry of Finance.

The 171 countries that are party to the convention will meet in Uruguay next week. Zimbabwe officials and farmers—white and black—are banding together to explore how to respond to a treaty that could derail the country’s fragile recovery after a decade of economic and political tumult.

“We have to set aside our differences to save the country’s economy,” said Kevin Cooke, president of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association, the main tobacco farmers’ body. “There are no alternative crops that come near tobacco.”
Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made, a close ally of President Mugabe, says the government is scrambling to save a dominant cash crop grown by the country’s largest and smallest of farmers, of all colors. “There are no differences between us on this one,” he says. “Everyone is working together and certainly we hope this togetherness can last.”

Mr. Made admits that Zimbabwe alone doesn’t have much leverage, and says it is relying on support from other countries that also oppose elements of the treaty.

The show of unity is remarkable in the current political climate. The shared government of President Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change is nearing an end. Officials in both parties, including Mr. Mugabe, say they want elections next year to replace the troubled coalition government, but another vote risks a repeat of the 2008 elections, in which hundreds are believed to have died in political violence.

Zimbabwe’s white farmers have tended to support Mr. Tsvangirai’s party. The prime minister has spoken out about the need to resolve land disputes in a legal and transparent manner—a stance that appears to side with international court decisions, including the Southern African Development Community tribunal that in 2008 ruled in favor of the land rights of white farmers. Mr. Mugabe’s government has said it won’t abide by that ruling.

It isn’t clear how long the unlikely alliance can last. The killing last month of Kobus Joubert, a leading white tobacco farmer and former president of the ZTA, highlights the insecurity faced by the few remaining white farmers. Police have described Mr. Joubert’s death has been described by police as occurring during a robbery, but farmer representatives say such violence has often been part of the farm evictions supported by Mr. Mugabe.

Today, fewer than 300 whites remain on farms, down from 4,500 when evictions started about a decade ago, according to Deon Theron, president of the Commercial Farmers Union. “Our members are still being violently evicted even when they have court orders on their side,” he said.

But when it comes to tobacco, the fighting has stopped, for now. Tobacco is Zimbabwe’s biggest agricultural employer, providing jobs for 350,000 people; an additional 500,000 work in related industries, such as cigarette manufacturing, according to the government and farmer unions. In September, Zimbabwe’s finance minister raised projections for full-year economic growth to slightly over 8% from its July forecast of 4.5%, largely because of resurgent tobacco sales. The industry earns much-needed foreign currency from its overseas sales of Burley tobacco, a product blended into such famous cigarette brands as Altria Group Inc.’s Marlboro.

The WHO treaty would hit countries that grow Burley tobacco hard. The crop requires blending with other ingredients that global health authorities deem harmful. In the draft guidelines, the WHO urges member governments to examine how to restrict or ban ingredients—such as those blended with Burley—that increase the attractiveness of tobacco products, “as a tool to help limit youth initiation,” said a WHO spokesman, in an email response to questions.

The treaty is expected to spearhead a global antitobacco campaign to reduce consumption of tobacco products, which the WHO says kills five million people a year, or one person every six seconds. Most of the deaths occur in middle- and low-income countries, according to the WHO.

The International Tobacco Growers’ Association has accused the WHO of rushing ahead with regulation without fully understanding the impact on tobacco farmers or directly consulting them. “If they are pushed to produce something else what are they going to do? You lose millions of jobs,” says Antonio Abrunhosa, chief executive of the ITGA, which says it has 30 million members world-wide. “Can you regulate chocolate without talking to chocolate producers?”

A study funded by the ITGA, released Thursday, estimated 3.6 million jobs in the tobacco-growing sector in five African countries were at risk because of the WHO proposals. The report warned another 12 million people would be affected by developments in the countries’ tobacco sectors.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa has also criticized the WHO action, arguing that its members that grow types of tobacco that require blending would suffer, according to a September communiqué. The trading bloc urged its members to lobby the WHO for a more industry-friendly treaty.

The WHO spokesman says a number of African countries are part of working groups currently drafting the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Zimbabwe isn’t yet among them. Mr. Cooke of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association says it has been skeptical of the treaty’s goals of ending tobacco use without coming up withoffering viable alternative crops.

Recently, however, both the government and the farmer groups have agreed that Zimbabwe should join the WHO treaty group, in a bid to help shape future tobacco regulations.

Says Mr. Made, the agriculture minister: “We cannot fight from outside and win.”

—Peter Wonacott in Johannesburg contributed to this article.

Material from: online.wsj.com