Experts Advocate Tobacco-to-Crop Shift for Food Security & Health

News Desk

Peshawar: Amidst the ongoing food crisis following the 2022 devastating floods and the global impact of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on food supply chains, there’s an immediate imperative to boost food production.

Swapping tobacco cultivation for crop farming emerges as a crucial solution to address this pressing issue. These views were expressed by experts in the health, nutrition, agriculture, and environment sectors.

Transforming tobacco farming into crop cultivation is essentially needed to overcome the grave problem of food insecurity faced by 36.9 percent of the population, besides the public health risks related to the consumption of the injurious commodity by millions of people, they emphasized.

“The data on 36.9 percent of the population facing food insecurity was compiled by the National Nutrition Survey in 2018, while the disastrous floods of 2022 have exacerbated the crisis manifold by plunging an additional 2.5 million people into extreme hunger, reaching an all-time high of 8.6 million people,” observed Waheed Ahmad, Patron in Chief of the Pakistan Fruits and Vegetable Importers and Exporters Association (PFVA).

After experiencing unprecedented destruction due to devastating flash flooding in 2022, we are now grappling with a monumental food crisis as millions of acres of agricultural land and crops are damaged, triggering food insecurity due to the scarcity of basic food items with their prices skyrocketing, added Waheed Ahmad.

Despite being an agrarian country, we are importing a large variety of food items, including basic ones like wheat, pulses, chickpeas, garlic, ginger, etc., and if we faced any restrictions over arranging the shipment of food items, the situation would be very deplorable for the nation, Waheed warns.

Due to difficulties in obtaining LCs (letters of credit) from banks because of the dollar shortage, importers are facing a lot of problems in continuing business, as a result, the shortage is increasing along with an increase in prices, depriving a large number of people of the ability to purchase daily-use items.

The PFVA chief endorsed the proposal of converting tobacco growing into crop farming as a remedy to counter the double threat of prevailing food insecurity and health risks.

He also suggested policymakers capitalise on the theme of World No Tobacco Day for the current year 2023, `Grow Food, Not Tobacco’.

It’s a suitable time for government authorities and policymakers to frame and implement suitable policies and strategies, carry out research, and enable market conditions for tobacco farmers to switch to growing food crops to curb the food crisis, Waheed reiterated.

“Tobacco is grown in all four provinces, but it is predominantly grown in KP, where it is a major part of the local agrarian economy,” observed Taimoor Khan, General Secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Association for Excellence in Agriculture.

In KP, tobacco is grown on around 30,000 hectares of land, and if half of this farming area is converted into growing a new variety of garlic, NARC G1, the farmers would make remarkable earnings and profits, Taimoor claimed.

Taimoor is a pioneer in the farming of NARC G1, introduced by the National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) in 2018 with the objective of increasing garlic production in the country, which means paying billions of rupees on the import of the product.

Taimoor said the profit from growing NARC G1 garlic is enormous, and after seven months of struggle, farmers can earn around Rs. one million from the utilisation of only one acre of land.

Apart from garlic, there are a lot of other varieties of vegetables and seasonal fruits, which can provide many benefits for the farming community and also help in meeting the problem of food scarcity in the country.

He also rejected the claim that tobacco farming is contributing to the strengthening of the country’s economy by generating revenue to the tune of Rs. 120 billion on an annual basis.

The economic cost of tobacco consumption by causing different diseases among people is estimated at around Rs. 615 billion, three times more than revenue generation in the form of taxes, he added.

“By transforming tobacco farming into food production, we can create ripple effects that promote food security, improve public health, contribute to the overall well-being of our communities, and benefit the environment,” opined Aftab Alam Khan, an international expert on climate change and CEO of Resilient Future International.

According to research findings, the cultivation of tobacco requires heavy use of pesticides and fertilisers, which causes soil degradation and affects its fertility, thus lowering the land’s capacity to grow other crops.

While appreciating the concept as a timely approach for overcoming food security in the country, Aftab stresses measures for maintaining intact the economic chain, attracting farmers towards the growing of tobacco.

He said the government should work over the policy and announce incentives for the farming community in a bid to convince them to switch from their decades-old choice of tobacco growing.

“Tobacco control through different measures is the need of the hour for ensuring the better health of people,” commented Dr Taj Muhammad, Communication Officer, Pakistan Chest Society.

According to a survey conducted by the National Health Services in 2018, Dr Taj said almost 23.9 million adults currently use tobacco in any form in the country. According to the Pakistan Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) 2015–2016, 45 percent of the households in Pakistan are tobacco consumers.

Around 163,600 people die each year in the country due to tobacco, and almost 31,000 of these deaths are due to exposure to second-hand smoke.

Overall, 10.9 percent of all deaths are caused by tobacco. Dr Taj laments and says the Pakistan Chest Society welcomes and supports any such initiative aimed at redirecting resources towards alternative crops that can be critical to motivating the farming community to prioritise spending on nutritious food rather than harmful tobacco products.