As the world.mark World No Tobacco Day, human rights crusader organisation, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA’) has advised Nigerian government to pay more attention to farmers to grow sustainable food crops instead of tobacco.
The group also called on the government to accelerate the implementation of Article 17 and 18 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) and its guidelines that outline how farmers could be supported from tobacco growing to sustainable alternative crops
CAPPA alerted that the continued tobacco farming and consumption were worsening the current food scarcity and the effects of climate change in Nigeria.
World No Tobacco Day is commemorated on May 31, every year.
CAPPA Director of Programmes, Philip Jakpor, raised the alarm, while addressing the press on the 2023 “World No Tobacco Day” in Lagos.
He explained that tobacco cultivation processes from clearing of large tracts of land, cutting of trees for tobacco curing, and cigarette manufacturing contributed to the climate crisis, and ultimstely threatened food security in the country.
With this year’s theme, “We Need Food, Not Tobacco,” Jakpor urged the government to focus on providing the ecosystem for farmers to grow sustainable food crops instead of tobacco.
He also advised the government to end subsidies for tobacco growing and use savings for crops substitution programmes that improve food security nutrition.
Jakpor, who disclosed that CAPPA management went to some communities including Oke-Ogun in Oyo State recently to empirically observe tobacco farming and how it destroys farmlands, condemned companies that were still encouraging tobacco farming.
He called on the Nigerian government to accelerate the implementation of Article 17 and 18 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) and its guidelines that outline how farmers could be supported from tobacco growing to sustainable alternative crops.
Jakpor pointed out that the guildelines provide opportunities for technical advice on agriculture to farmers, linking them to necessary supplies and services to support their agricultural production, providing financial support to increase production of healthy food, and divesting away from tobacco towards alternative crops.
Yearly, the World No Tobacco Day is commemorated on May 31 to raise awareness about the harms caused by tobacco products to people, public health, communities, the environment as recent evidence has shown.
Source: The Sun
