Ethical issues

Child Labour

Tobacco farming is a labour intensive and costly process. Family farmers, who make up the bulk of tobacco growers, are often forced by economic reasons to rely on their children for a cheap labour source. Around the world, children miss school during the growing season and put in long hours in the field instead. Child labour is widespread in all major tobacco producing countries including Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malawi, the United States and Zimbabwe. 1
In 2001 the World Health Organization issued a report condemning child labour in tobacco production. Among other dangers, the report highlights that "children working in the tobacco fields are directly exposed to a cocktail of highly toxic agro-chemicals. These chemicals… cause damage to eyes, skin, internal organs, and are potentially carcinogenic and mutagenic. Exposure to these chemicals poses a considerably higher risk to children than adults," with higher rates of cancer, nervous system disorders, and immune system breakdowns. 2

Malawi
" The tobacco industry, taking advantage of cheap labour, has targeted children to work on the tobacco farms," explains John Kapito of the Consumers Association of Malawi. 3 Many Malawian children are forced by poverty to travel to tobacco estates far from home to work in order to supplement their family’s income. A 1993 study found that of children living on tobacco estates, 78 percent of 10-14 year olds and 55 percent of 7-9 year olds worked full or part-time. 4
" Many of these children have never seen a classroom despite the fact that education is free in this country. Perhaps 90 percent do not attend school." John Kapito explains that such conditions "perpetuate poverty because most of the children are exploited and they are denied a meaningful and sustainable future." 5 Malawi exports almost 20 percent of its tobacco leaf to the United States. 6

Brazil
British American Tobacco, the largest tobacco producing company in Brazil, claims to be fighting child labour. On its website, in a special section on "Child Labour Policy," BAT says: "We are committed to the principles of protecting children from child labour exploitation, believing that their development – as well as that of their communities and countries – is best served through education, not child labour." 7
However, Walter Bianchini, director of Brazil’s DESER (Departamento Sindical de Estudos Rurais), affirms "it is impossible for tobacco farmers to make a living unless they get their children to do some of the work. The tobacco companies might say they are committed to getting children out of the fields and into schools but unless they pay the farmer more for his work then this will simply not happen." 8 The tobacco conglomerates have reportedly asked schools to rearrange their schedules so children are available to work the fields. 9
In Brazil’s 160,000 family tobacco farms, an estimated 750,000 workers are needed to bring the labour-intensive crop to market. 10 Of those, some 520,000 farm workers are under 18 years old, and 32 percent of those are under 14. 11 Brazil is the biggest tobacco exporter in the world and the US is Brazil’s biggest buyer. 12

Case Study: Slavery in India’s Bidi Industry
While child labour is particularly widespread in tobacco farming, youth are exploited at other points in the production process as well. In India an estimated 325,000 children work rolling "bidis," thin cigarettes wrapped in the flavorful tendu leaf. Up to 50% of these children are bonded labourers, sold as slaves to their employers. 13
As young as seven, the children spend twelve to fourteen hours a day, 6 days a week, sitting cross-legged on the floor rolling the "bidis." When their work-pace slows, they are sometimes subjected to beatings. 14Health problems abound. Human Rights Watch issued a report stating: "Bidi rollers spend their lives constantly inhaling tobacco dust, and study after study has shown them to suffer a high rate of tuberculosis, asthma, and other lung disorders." 15
 
1 World Health Organization. "Tobacco and the Rights of the Child." 4 May 2001. 7 Mar. 2002
< http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/pr2001-24.html>.
2 Glock, Clarinha. "Health-Brazil: Kids at Risk from Agrochemicals on Tobacco Farms." 17 Feb. 1999.
InterPress Service. 7 Mar. 2002 <http://lists.essential.org/intl-tobacco/msg00064.html>; Christian
Aid. "Hooked on Tobacco: British American Tobacco Report." Feb. 2002. 7 Mar. 2002 <http://christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0201bat/batsum.htm>.
3 Golden Leaf Barren Harvest: The Costs of Tobacco Farming. Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Washington
D.C., Nov. 2001.
4 Fyfe, Alec. "Bitter Harvest: Child Labor In Agriculture." 1997. International Labor Organization. 6 Mar. 2002 <http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/actrav/genact/child/part2_a/agric.htm>.
5 Golden Leaf Barren Harvest: The Costs of Tobacco Farming. Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Washington
D.C., Nov. 2001.
6 U.S. Department of Agriculture. Global Agriculture Information Network Report on Malawi Tobacco and
Products. United States, 20 July 2000.
7 British American Tobacco. 7 Mar. 2002 <http://www.bat.com/oneweb/sites/uk_3mnfen.nsf>.
8 Christian Aid. "Hooked on Tobacco: British American Tobacco Report." Feb. 2002. 7 Mar. 2002
< http://christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0201bat/batsum.htm>.
9 Cordeiro, Angela; Marochi, Francisco and Tardin, Jose Maria. "A Poison Crop: Tobacco in Brazil." Global
Pesticide Campaigner 8.2 (1998). 6 Mar. 2002
< http://www.igc.org/panna/resources/_pestis/PESTIS980622.2.html>.
10 Christian Aid. "Hooked on Tobacco: British American Tobacco Report." Feb. 2002. 7 Mar. 2002
< http://christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0201bat/batsum.htm>.
11 World Health Organization. "Tobacco and the Rights of the Child." 4 May 2001. 7 Mar. 2002
< http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/pr2001-24.html>.
12 US Department of Agriculture. Global Agriculture Information Network Report on Brazil Tobacco and
Products. United States, 3 July 2001.
13 World Health Organization. "Tobacco and the Rights of the Child." 4 May 2001. 7 Mar. 2002
URL: http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/pr2001-24.html.
14 ibid
15 Human Rights Watch. "The Small Hands of Slavery: 15 Bonded Child Labor in India." 1996. 6 Mar. 2002
URL: http://hrw.org/reports/1996/India3.htm.

Exploiting Workers

Under the Thumb of Big Tobacco: Farming to Feed the Addiction
Nearly from the outset, the tobacco industry wrenched its profits from the sweat of a super-exploited workforce. Contrary to popular misconception, tobacco, not cotton, was the early driving force of the slave trade in America. What stands out when examining the tobacco industry's labour history is how little has changed.
Corporate globalization today has re-written the rulebook of labour relations, establishing conditions at the point of production bearing uncanny resemblance to the days of old. Locked into contract with transnational tobacco growers and crushed by a cycle of debt, small tobacco farmers across the globe face a life of virtual bondage, with few options but to continue toiling under the grueling conditions in the fields.

Brazil's New Sharecroppers
Tobacco farmers around the world are often trapped in a web of debt to the three tobacco-leaf monopolies that control the global market: Universal Corporation and DIMON Inc., both US based companies, and British American Tobacco (BAT). This is a relationship between farmer and corporation that bears a remarkable likeness to the American sharecropping system that arose after the American Civil War, where sharecroppers were required to purchase seed, equipment, and even clothing and food from landowners.
Brazil is the world's largest exporter of tobacco and one of the main suppliers to the American tobacco industry, which imports more tobacco from Brazil than any other country.1 134,930 tiny family farms in the four southernmost Brazilian states account for 92 percent of the country's tobacco production. In order to be allowed to farm for BAT's subsidiary Souza Cruz, farmers must sign a contract with the corporation. The contract requires the farmer to purchase tobacco seed from the company and grow a specific amount for Souza Cruz. 92 percent of tobacco in Brazil is grown on family farms of two acres or less. For most farmers, their entire crop goes to Souza Cruz.2

The Debt Trap
About 35 percent of Brazilian farmers end the season owing more money to the companies than they made selling their crop. Blasio and Claire Lehman, who bought their tobacco farm in Southern Brazil in the mid-70s, consider themselves lucky to earn $75 a month. Still, their son Ismail felt compelled to quit school in order to save the family $35 a month in bus fare. "All we're doing is falling deeper and deeper [into debt] each year," said Claire Lehman.3
" It's a situation of near slavery," say Laercio Levardnosk, a lawyer who regularly defends small farmers. "The farmers have a minimal profit if the production is good. But if they have a bad harvest then the debt they owe the tobacco company is rolled over to the next year."4
It is the companies themselves that effectively dictate the tobacco leaf "grade," which determines price. A 2002 Christian Aid study reports, "flue-cured Virginia tobacco from Brazil is a close second in quality to that from the USA and yet Brazilian tobacco farmers are paid, per kilo of tobacco, around a quarter as much as their US counterparts."5
Such circumstances condemn most farmers to a life under the thumb of Big Tobacco. Helio Friedrich, a city councilman from Venancio Aires, Brazil, explains "We have a system in which half a dozen companies are strangling the growers. Each year they come up with a new way to squeeze the growers tighter."6

Big Tobacco Unites... Against Farmers!
The tobacco industry has a long and successful history of using its tremendous economic clout to win the favour of governments worldwide. The combined annual revenues of the three tobacco farming giants equal $22.7 billion. In contrast, the biggest tobacco farming operations take place in some of the poorest countries in the world, giving the transnational monopolies a great deal of leverage to intervene in local politics.7 For example, Big Tobacco has incredible pull in Zimbabwe, where tobacco accounts for 32 percent of the country's exports, and in Malawi, where 58 percent of exports are tobacco products, and in Brazil.8 Often, this political influence is used to fix leaf purchasing prices at low levels.
The tobacco companies have developed a particularly sophisticated system to subjugate farmers in Brazil. In the late 1980s a farmers' strike effectively cut tobacco leaf supply, forcing the companies into negotiations giving farmers a 50 percent increase in payments. The farmers' success sent chills down Big Tobacco's back. "But shortly after" the strike, reports the New York Times, "the companies banded together, with all offering the same terms to the growers. That ended any opportunity for the growers to negotiate prices."9
Additionally, the tobacco monopolies have secured government support. In the Brazilian state Rio Grande do Sul, tobacco companies were granted nearly $1 billion in tax breaks. When pricing disputes cause farmers to refuse sale of their crops to the companies, police are sent in to "help the companies seize the crops."10
Glenio Haas, tobacco farmer and father of three, refused to sell much of his crop when the company he had contracted with offered him less than it was worth. At the company's price, his family would earn just half of Brazil's minimum wage. After returning home to await the arrival of police, Glenio Haas told the New York Times:
" The truth is the farmer sacrifices enormously to plant. If, at the time of selling, they tell you it's worth less than you think, there are no words for how revolted you become. The only thing that's left is for us to go hungry."11

Case Study: Farmers Fight Back
In April of 2000 in the Malawian capital city, Lilongwe, tobacco farmers staged a protest against the price fixing by the leaf buying monopolies. The buyers were offering $0.10 per kilo for tobacco which had sold for $1-$2 per kilo the year before. The protesters shut down the auction twice before the Malawian riot police quelled the farmers.12 Only three years before the same tobacco leaf auction had been shut down for two days when indignant farmers forced the foreign buyers to flee by throwing tobacco leaves at them.13
Similarly in Zimbabwe, where 70 percent of the market is controlled by just two tobacco companies, farmers have resorted to direct action protests to demand fair payment.14 When prices fell to $0.80 in a 1998 auction there, three quarters of the farmers tore up their auction tickets in protest.15
Resistance across the globe suggests that tobacco farmers would change crops if they were able. However, bound by debt and lacking the credit needed to make the transition, most farmers don't have options. Faced with the realities of corporate tobacco's globalization, growing numbers have come to a bitter conclusion: today's tobacco farmers are simply the modern day inheritors of an old and hated labor regime dating back to the tobacco slave plantations.

1 U.S. Department of Agriculture. U.S. Tobacco Import Update. September 2000. http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/tobacco/Data/importupdate.pdf.
2 Christian Aid. "Hooked on Tobacco" February 2002.
3 Diana Jean Schemo, "In Brazil Tobacco Country, Conglomerates Rule," New York Times, 2 April 1998.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Diana Jean Schemo, "In Brazil Tobacco Country, Conglomerates Rule," New York Times, 2 April 1998.
7 Tobacco export data from FAO statistical database (http://apps.fao.org) for 1997; total export earnings dat afrom World Bank, Entering the 21st Century: World Development Report 1999/2000.
8 Based on World Development Report (World Bank) figures for 1999. Malawi earned $272 million of its total exports of $470 million from tobacco while Zimbabwe earned $612 million of its total exports of $1924 million.
9 Diana Jean Schemo, "In Brazil Tobacco Country, Conglomerates Rule," New York Times, 2 April 1998.
10 Diana Jean Schemo, "In Brazil Tobacco Country, Conglomerates Rule," New York Times, 2 April 1998.
11 Diana Jean Schemo, "In Brazil Tobacco Country, Conglomerates Rule," New York Times, 2 April 1998.
12 "Malawian Riot Police Keep Calm In Tobacco Growers Protest," South African Broadcasting Corporation, 18 April 2000.
13 Taco Tuinstra, "Malawi Farmers Turn On Foreign Buyers After Drop in Prices," Tobacco Reporter, June 1997.
14 Taco Tuinstra, "Pressure Building," Tobacco Reporter, June 1998
15 Michael Hartnack, "Tobacco Auctions Off To A Good Start," Business Day (South Africa), 22 April 1999.

Animal Cruelty

Tobacco companies have been shameless in their disregard for human life-but its disregard extends to animal life, too. The tobacco industry uses animals to test the effectiveness of new products. Cats, frogs, rats, guinea pigs, and dogs are just some of the animals that have been used for experimentation by Big Tobacco. Animals have even been used to prove that tobacco is harmful. Dogs first proved that cigarette smoke was a carcinogen when some Beagles were given tracheostomies and then exposed to cigarette smoke through machines.1
In the case of R.J. Reynolds (RJR), corporate interest in animals goes well beyond its Camel cigarettes. In 1989, RJR was working on a "safer" cigarette called Premier, but Premier was not going over well with humans because it required a big drag in order to draw the smoke out. So, RJR decided to see how baboons used Premier in order to make Premier cigarettes a better "drug delivery device" for humans.2
RJR commissioned a study where baboons were made to smoke crack cocaine through Premier cigarettes. The study was designed to demonstrate to RJR whether strong addictions helped the subject overcome difficulties with drawing smoke from Premier.
The crack was provided by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who gave RJR a supply of 90 to 95% pure, free-base cocaine. For control groups, some monkeys were given cocaine intravenously, and another set of monkeys smoked regular cigarettes.
RJR was at a loss again, though, as even crack did not make the baboons smoke Premier cigarettes "effectively." The researcher lamented, "I am sorry to hear that the samples from the animals who smoked Premier cigarettes loaded with crack were relatively low in cocaine content. ... As are humans, baboons are very sensitive to draw resistance."2
In 1992, when RJR was under fire for its animal testing, RJR proclaimed that the use of experimental animals at RJR was restricted, as "the only animals used are rats and mice."3 RJR's cover-up reflects their unwillingness to admit to the true extent of their animal cruelty.

(1) Frontline On-line. "Inside the Tobacco Deal: Auerbach Dog Study." 1998. 4 Mar. 2002.
URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/case/dogs.html.
(2) Rogers, W. First Draft Report on Pilot Experiment on Crack Puffing Baboons via Premier. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. February 9, 1989. Access Date: February 6, 2002. Bates No.: 511477664-7669. URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=sou43d00&fmt=pdf&ref=results.
(3) ibid.
(4) R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The Use of Experimental Animals at RJR. 1992. Access Date: February 6, 2002. Bates No.: 508478479-8481. URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=owj93d00&fmt=pdf&ref=results.