Tobacco Production Impact Working Group

The TPIWG has been created with the intention of raising awareness of the deleterious effect that tobacco production has on the health, environment and economies of developing countries and the role that tobacco companies and Scottish investment plays in perpetuating poverty and human rights abuses.

The exploitation of cheap labour, unregulated working conditions and poor environmental controls which create cheap manufactured goods and big profit margins for clothing retailers has attracted investment by tobacco companies with shocking outcomes.

Tobacco production can affect the health of farmers, their children and the wider community through pesticide use, through reliance on child labour and through sequestration of land previously used to feed communities.

Tobacco production can impact the local economy by removing diversity in agricultural production locally and by effectively enslaving farmers to tobacco buyers.  It can also degrade the enviroment by accelerating deforestation as trees are burned to cure tobacco.  There are also social and political impacts on those developing countries too reliant on tobacco as a cash crop used to service foreign debt.

You can register an interest in supporting the working group by contacting David Robertson.  Meeting notes and further information is available in the password protected members' area.

Useful links

www.unfairtobacco.org

Expert in the field, Marty Otanez, University of Colorado, Denver

Channel 4 Documentary  http://www.channel4.com/programmes/unreported-world/episode-guide/series-2010/episode-4