Bitter leaves: tobacco's devastating global legacy
“With a long history of denying the health risks of smoking and secondhand smoke, obscuring the truth about tobacco and deceiving smokers, the tobacco industry has evolved into an inordinately lucrative business,” writes Judith Mackay, in the abridged afterword to Bitter Leaves.
“A crop that can be grown in any warm, damp environment, tobacco can be farmed on all the continents except Antarctica. With this accessibility among other forces, the industry is one of the most powerful on earth.
“Smoking tobacco is the most wellknown cause of lung cancer and other diseases such as heart disease, stroke and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). The supply side of the tobacco industry is also the cause of a slew of other reparations including extreme poverty, dependency and diseases of tobacco farmers; child labour; deforestation. The tobacco industry has a strong hand of control throughout the tobacco cycle from seed to sale, but the devastation it causes is ultimately borne by governments, tobacco workers, users and their families, creating a seemingly endless cycle of poverty, destruction and death.”
South Hill, Virginia, USA (pictured above)After the English colonised Jamestown in 1607, John Rolfe began planting seeds of a popular Spanish variety of tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum, and soon became the first North American farmer to cultivate and export tobacco – breaking the previous Spanish monopoly. It effectively enabled North American colonies to become financially independent. By 1640, tobacco was the predominant cash crop. In North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina tobacco is still regarded as crucial to the local economy. This photos was taken inside the Tobacco Farm Life Museum.
Fiumicino, Italy An officer of the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s financial police, showing the contents of a suitcase seized at the airport containing €6,000 worth of cigarettes intended for the Italian-Chinese community. In
recent years, with the global economic crisis, illicit tobacco trading has grown exponentially and Italy is the main point of entry in Europe for tobacco smuggling. British American Tobacco documents reveal that illegal trade has been both profitable and integral to BAT operations.
Nipani, India A bidi tobacco taster employed by Shah Chhaganlal Ugarchand, one of the largest tobacco commission agents of the region. A tobacco taster can smoke up to 100 bidis a day to grade the different batches of tobacco before purchase.
Pangire, IndiaA female worker in a bidi tobacco processing plant. Inside these plants, air is saturated with tobacco dust. By not using protective gear, workers can develop chronic inflammation in their nose and throat. Despite these dangerous working conditions, a recent study showed that while bidi rolling constitutes up to 80% of female employment, the monthly income is only one third of non-bidi workers in the same area.
Munich, Germany Henkel, a chemical and consumer goods company exhibiting at the World Tobacco Expo. Each year, nearly 6 trillion cigarettes are smoked around the globe. Every cigarette is held together by around 0.018 grams of adhesive. The supply of tobacco adhesives is a multimillion-dollar industry, with various companies competing for business. German-based Henkel serves tobacco companies by offering a production facility on each continent.
Xundian, China Wang Zhi Hui, a tobacco grower, in her family’s barn. Xundian is one of the poorest rural areas in Yunnan province. Some 180 people reside in the village and almost all of them grow tobacco despite the hilly land and infertile soil. The tobacco industry has been largely responsible for the economic growth of the province, but it has failed to spread wealth to rural areas where around 87% of the province’s population lives.
Nipani, India Tobacco labourer Dipali Lohar in a mixed field with bidi tobacco and sorgum. This technique helps farmers reduce their dependency on tobacco.
Periyapatna, India A farmer’s child sitting on a tobacco bale on the floor of a tobacco auction house. According to the UN’s International Labour Organization, about 1.3 million children work in tobacco fields, with the number increasing in certain countries like India and Zimbabwe. A recent study estimates more than 1.7 million children work in India’s bidi rolling industry. The UN’s sustainable developmental goals aim to reduce the number of children engaged in tobacco farming by providing alternative livelihoods.
Kunming, China The headquarters of the Kunming Tobacco Cigarette Factory. The factory belongs to Honghe Tobacco Company, part of the Honyun Honghe Group which controls 60% of Yunnan’s cigarette market. With the production of 235bn cigarettes per year, the group represents the world’s fourthlargest producer – after Philip Morris International, BAT and Japan Tobacco – in terms of production volume and annual revenue.
Yuxi, ChinaInside the Hongta Group factory. The company claims it has the world’s most advanced cigarette production line, with fully-automated robots. In the Yuxi factory, more than 135bn sticks are produced per year, covering 12% of China’s total production. China is the largest producer of cigarettes in the world and sells about 2.5 trillion a year. State-owned China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) controls 97% of the Chinese cigarette market.
Goldsboro, North Carolina, USMiguel, a 14-year-old Mexican migrant worker, picking leaves in a tobacco field with his aunt and uncle. In the US, teenagers are permitted to work on tobacco farms, and in the summer they can work up to seven days a week, twelve to thirteen hours per day, earning about $8 per hour. Handling tobacco leaves causes the trans-dermic absorption of high doses of nicotine, equivalent to smoking up to 36 cigarettes. The resulting poisoning is called green tobacco sickness. Children, with their smaller body mass, have lower intoxication thresholds.
Francolise, Italy Women working at the main sorting line of the Deltafina threshing plant. Here, leaves purchased by tobacco dealers are evaluated, sorted and cut before being sent to cigarette manufacturers. No precautions are implemented for workers to reduce the intake of tobacco dust and the risk of nicotine poisoning.
Milan, ItalyA Cat scanner at the European Institute of Oncology, used to detect cancer. This type of expensive equipment is not available to most cancer patients in the world. The global economic cost of smoking is $1.85bn – equivalent in magnitude to 1.8% of the world’s annual gross domestic product.
Jakarta, Indonesia A salesperson promoting Djarum Black Menthol cigarettes during a music parade inside a waterpark. Salespeople are typically female students who must sign an exclusivity contract stating they will not work for any other tobacco company. Tobacco companies in Indonesia have a high-profile presence in music, sport and cultural events, from local to international level. Indonesia has been labelled the “tobacco industry’s Disneyland” by organisations involved in tobacco control, that claim these sponsorships are clearly aimed at new, young potential tobacco consumers.
Yuxi, China A man smoking using a water pipe. Tobacco is commonly cultivated in the area and farmers keep a small quantity of their product for selfuse – although the practice is illegal. In 2006, most of China’s rural agricultural taxes ended, with the exception of tobacco.
Periyapatna, India P Jayarama (centre), auction superintendent of the Tobacco Board auction floor, accepting bids for the exhibited tobacco bales. Tobacco prices range between $1 and $2.50 per kg. Auctions can last between two to five months, during which Tobacco Board officials grade tobacco bales and offer purchase prices. Mounting debts and low prices on the auction floor have triggered a number of suicides among tobacco farmers in the major tobacco growing states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana.
Lucama, North Carolina, USA seasonal worker in front of a tobacco curing barn at Sullivan Farms. Buying and running barns is expensive and farmers complain about the increasingly lower prices paid by tobacco companies for leaves, commenting that “if a pack of cigarettes costs $5, farmers get about 5c.’ In the US, the tobacco crop is worth $1.5bn yearly, yet more than half of the tobacco content of cigarettes made in the United States comes from foreign countries.
Nipani, India The Apparamadhange family – owner of 2 hectares (5 acres) of tobacco-growing land – drying their yearly production. They have been planting bidi tobacco for the last 18 years. Tobacco is a labour-intensive crop and farmers work from June to January. Commissioning agents, who buy tobacco from farmers, control the market. Final price agreements with each individual tobacco farmer is done secretly, using a code and covering their hands under a white towel. With no government-run tobacco board, the market is unregulated and there is no organisation providing financial support to farmers.
Milan, Italy Serenella Pacifici, 71, in the surgery ward of the European Institute of Oncology, waiting to be operated on for lung cancer. She has smoked since the age of 17. In Italy, 7% of the funds spent on the healthcare system are used for treatments linked to smoking.
Jakarta, Indonesia An underage smoker. More than 30% of Indonesian children start smoking before the age of 10, often propelled by lax tobacco control policies, aggressive marketing strategies and low cigarette costs. More than 165 million people smoke in Indonesia, accounting for more than one third of the population. Indonesia has the highest rate of underage smokers in the world.
• Bitter Leaves by Rocco Rorandelli will be published by Gost Books in September (£30)