Growers Voice Concerns
ITGA President Francois van der Merwe (right), KTGO Chairman Lee Hae-kwon, ITGA CEO Antonio Abrunhosa, and ITGA Asia Spokeswoman Asuncion Lopez at Monday's COP5 tobacco growers press event.
Statement of Antonio Abrunhosa, CEO of International Tobacco Growers Association
At the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) biennial Conference of the Parties (CoP5), which begins today at the COEX Center, delegates from more than 170 governments will decide the fate of more than 30 million tobacco farmers and their dependents when they vote on recommendations to artificially reduce, and eventually eliminate, tobacco growing.
The vast majority of these delegates know very little or nothing about agriculture and even less about tobacco farming. Yet, they are deciding on measures that would lead Governments to force tobacco farmers out of tobacco without proposing any alternatives.
The Korea Times - Will Government Agree to Kill Tobacco Farming
The Korea Timesran a column from Abunhosa highlighting the growers position at COP5, calling the measures "illogical" and noting the "ideas are so radical that even tobacco control advocates are calling them 'simply impractical.'" He concludes by noting that these kind of recommendations "cannot be left to a handful of people running a fantasy revolution."
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