T5 countries meet in Victoria Falls to discuss tobacco farming future

Five southern African countries calling themselves “T5”—Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Zambia will gather in Victoria Falls next week to deliberate on strategies to save their tobacco industries for a potential threat of the ban of the crop.

The meeting will attract stakeholders from the five countries as well as various international tobacco players.

The coalition was formed to counter the global anti-tobacco lobby, which seeks to ban tobacco due to some health hazards associated with smoking.

Apart from health-related issues, global anti-tobacco activists have also cited the abuse of children in tobacco fields.

Tobacco is a major source of livelihood for the rural population in the SADC region and the ban would have far-reaching negative impacts.

In Zimbabwe, tobacco is the largest foreign currency earner after gold and more than 150 000 farmers, mostly smallholder farmers, are involved in the growing of the crop.

The majority of the farmers were resettled under the land reform programme, which began at the turn of the millennium.

Before the exercise, the land was owned by about 4 500 farmers.

The global anti-tobacco ban has seen some cigarette manufacturers developing e-cigarettes to replace conventional sticks with science-based smoke-free products.

The devices provide nicotine without burning, making them a much better alternative to cigarettes. However, the World Health Organisation argues electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products are not helping fight cancer urging the Government not to trust claims from cigarette firms about their latest products.

According to Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, tobacco use causes more than 7 million deaths per year and if the pattern of smoking all over the globe doesn’t change, more than 8 million people a year will die from diseases related to tobacco use by 2030.

It says cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480 000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41 000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1 300 deaths every day.

On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.-businessweek