New Delhi, Sep 22 (KNN) Measures impacting tobacco cultivation and tobacco farmers cannot be decided only by health officials and activists and requires the participation of tobacco growers and other stakeholders including related ministries, demanded the International Tobacco Growers Association.

The tobacco growers from across the world took the opportunity of the ITGA Annual Meeting to emphasize that Tobacco is a remunerative crop providing livelihood to millions of farmers, farm workers and their family members and contributing significantly to the economies of tobacco growing countries.

Tobacco growers representing growers’ organizations from India, Indonesia, South Africa, Portugal, Zimbabwe, Philippines, Brazil, Bulgária, Italy, Lebanon, Malawi, Tanzânia, USA and Zambia, met in New Delhion September 20 & 21, 2016 and expressed grave concern over the threat posed to their occupation and livelihood by the unreasonably harsh and arbitrary regulatory measures being adopted by national governments in many parts of the world, the International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA) said in a statement.

Growers noted with anguish that such anti-farmer regulatory policies are being driven by anti-tobacco activists without any real world knowledge of tobacco cultivation and the importance of tobacco to the economy of many countries or the livelihood challenges faced by the farming community in the tobacco growing regions of the world, the statement added.

ITGA said that the industry recognizes the need to regulate the consumption of tobacco products but demand balanced and evidence-based regulations that do not cause devastating impact on the livelihood of the millions of tobacco growers without achieving the desired objectives of tobacco control.

François van der Merwe, President, ITGA, said, “We appeal to national Governments to prevent the NGOs and other anti-tobacco activists from spreading their propaganda based on suspect and misleading data directed at influencing the Policy Making processes. Measures impacting tobacco cultivation and tobacco farmers cannot be decided only by health officials and activists and requires the participation of tobacco growers and other stakeholders including related ministries.”

The growers at the ITGA Annual Meeting called upon the Indian Government, representing the world’s largest democracy and the host nation to the COP7, to ensure that the COP7 procedures and decision-making processes are not in breach of India’s high democratic ideals upholding openness and dialogue. Since farmers will definitely be impacted by the decisions at the COP7, no reason is good enough to deny access to the representatives of the tobacco growing communities.

Farmers who earn their livelihood from tobacco cultivation need to understand the future agenda on tobacco control and to share their viewpoint on the impact of the proposed policy recommendations under the FCTC, ITGA said.