TWN Tobacco threatens Kenya food security

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

                      *********************
                      World No Tobacco Day
                      *********************
                          31st May 1999
                      *********************

                       
TOBACCO CULTIVATION THREATENS FOOD SECURITY IN KENYA

Cigarette multinational corporations in Kenya are accused of 
endangering the country's food security, by their tobacco 
cultivation.

By Jane Kariuki

Migori, Kenya: When the British American Tobacco Company, one of 
the world's leading cigarette multinationals, made its coveted 
entry into Kenya in 1907, few could have predicted that it would 
be facing charges of endangering the country's food security some 
90 years later.

But that is precisely the allegation BAT faces today along with 
others in the tobacco industry.

The largest agro-based company in Kenya today, BAT contracts 
17,500 small-scale farmers to cultivate tobacco over an estimated 
15,000 hectares of fertile agricultural land. But some of them 
are switching to food crops, complaining that growing tobacco 
requires intensive labour and close care for long periods and 
that the earnings are low. 

They say they neither have the time to grow traditional food 
crops -- like maize, beans, sorghum, cassava, and sweet potatoes 
-- nor do they earn enough to buy sufficient food for the family.

'After all the work, I was still unable to make ends meet,' says 
George Onyango, a farmer in Migori district in western Kenya. 
Onyango has recently abandoned tobacco for maize on his 1.25-
hectare land. He says his annual income has mushroomed from about 
8,000 shillings ($133) from a single tobacco crop to a tidy 
60,000 shillings ($1,000) from two harvests of maize a year.

Not only is his work less tedious now, says the father of four, 
'but I can feed my family and sell off some of the maize to pay 
school fees.'

The tobacco farmer's year begins with the preparation of seedbeds 
around February. BAT hands out the seeds free, but most farm 
inputs like chemicals and fertilisers come as loans.

Constant watering, weeding and ridging is followed by harvesting 
in July. That's not the end of it - curing takes time, not least 
because wood is becoming rarer in tobacco-growing areas, forcing 
farmers to walk longer distances each time around. Farmers then 
have to inspect the tobacco leaf by leaf before hauling it all 
off for weighing.

As Awino, another Migori farmer, points out, 'In the tobacco 
season we have a lot of work and we have little time to cook for 
our children. We buy our maize from the town.'

This explains why the tobacco cultivation season from February to 
August sometimes sees Awino's two teenage sons skip school to 
help her with housework. For her pains, Awino makes about 5,000 
shillings ($83) after the multinational has recovered its loan. 
She says she is now considering switching to sugarcane, also a 
cash crop.

It is not until July that most farmers can take a break from 
tobacco and start cultivating food crops in time for the short 
November rains. But the problem for Kenya is that just one season 
of maize does not produce enough to feed its population of 30 
million. The country needs two harvests in most areas to produce 
the needed three million tonnes. As a result, Kenya was forced to 
import maize from neighbouring countries in 1997.

It is evident to a visitor to Migori that, despite the tobacco 
money, cases of malnutrition in children are high and 
accommodation is basic. A survey by the United Nations Children's 
Fund bears out the impression -- it says 52% of children in Migori 
district either suffer from chronic or acute under-nutrition or 
are underweight.

As pointed out in a 1994 study conducted by John Nkuchia for the 
University of Michigan School of Public Health, tobacco has 
changed little materially for farmers -- it may have even lowered 
incomes.

The paper, presented at the Ninth World Conference on Tobacco and 
Health in Paris, suggests that food production in the tobacco-
growing districts of Kenya has decreased as farmers have shifted 
from food crops to tobacco.

Using figures extracted from the Kenyan Central Bureau of 
Statistics and 'the industry's annual reports', Nkuchia estimated 
that the number of farmers contracted by BAT increased by 67% 
from 7,000 in 1972 to 11,000 in 1991, and by 36% from 1991 to 
1993. Alongside, the land under tobacco grew rapidly.

At this rate, he wrote in Milking the Last Drop: A Case of the 
Tobacco Industry in Kenya, 'the number of farmers growing tobacco 
will nearly double by 2010'. And that, he feared, would double 
the amount of land used for tobacco cultivation at the expense of 
food crops.

Whether BAT is to blame for the suggested bleak scenario is a 
matter of opinion. The company strongly denies endangering food 
security. It also denies advising farmers to keep aside one or 
two hectares of land for tobacco as Nkuchia claims. 'Farmers grow 
their tobacco on any size of land they want -- we do not specify 
for them the size of land to be used on tobacco,' said Keli 
Kiilu, a BAT spokesperson.

But the comments of farmers such as Onyango and Awino appear to 
support Nkuchia's argument that net income from tobacco is less 
than from food crops.

There is, however, one important distinction: Nkuchia's evidence 
was gathered from Meru district in eastern Kenya. He said that a 
visit to Migori district failed to provide any evidence that 
farmers there were switching from tobacco to food cultivation. 
But the interviews by Panos Features show some Migori farmers may 
now be following the Meru example. 

Kenyan government literature discussing the problem of under-
nutrition in Migori district admits that people in the district 
have '...insufficient powers to purchase the right foods'.

BAT on the other hand argues that tobacco farmers have fared well 
under it. It says BAT farmers earned 672 million shillings ($11.2 
million) in 1997, while the previous year's earnings topped 819 
million shillings ($13.6 million).

Kiilu also points out that increased tobacco production has 
generated ancillary employment in distribution, marketing and 
retailing. BAT cigarettes are sold through 49 distributors, 1,000 
stockists or wholesalers and at least 40,000 retailers. All told, 
more than a million Kenyans derive their livelihood from BAT. And 
the company prides itself in supporting the government through 
taxes and rural development programmes such as tree-planting.

Indeed, there are many farmers who like working for BAT and even 
cultivate tobacco out of season, which is prohibited by law.

But the case of Onyango suggests that the profits made by BAT are 
not trickling down to the small farmer. This is an irony because 
small farmers are the backbone of agriculture, which makes up the 
largest portion of Kenya's economy, accounting for some 29% of 
its Gross Domestic Product.

As with many developing countries around the world, Kenya is 
increasingly shifting toward export-driven cash crops such as 
tea, coffee and tobacco to offset an external debt which by 1985 
had reached $7.4 billion. Tobacco is Kenya's major foreign 
exchange earner - in 1997 BAT alone earned a record 906 million 
shillings ($15.4 million) in foreign exchange.

Tobacco, however, is not the only cash crop causing problems to 
small farmers. In sugarcane-growing areas like Bungoma district 
in western Kenya, there are similar reports of farmers who earn 
as little as 10,000 shillings ($166) per acre of land, toiling 
with their families all year round on a crop that too leaves them 
with little time to grow food. - Third World Network 
Features/PANOS

                                         -ends-

About the writer: Jane Kariuki is a contributor to Panos 
Features, in which the above article first appeared.

When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network 
Features and PANOS and give the byline. Please send us cuttings.

Reproduction rights are offered to subscribers of TWN 
Features. If you are not a subscriber and would like to reproduce 
this feature, you can get permission or subscription details from 
our India office via email twnfeatures@vsnl.com