Tobacco, Pesticides, and Suicides
by Angela Cordeiro, Francisco Marochi and José Maria Tardin

BRAZIL – The 1997/1998 season has been one of the worst to date for tobacco farmers in the tobacco-growing region of southern Paraná. Excessive El Niño rainfall caused crop failures and tobacco companies are paying lower prices for storm-damaged tobacco. Farmers who also lost their bean and maize crops have no other income to pay their debts. Local papers have reported several suicides among Paraná’s farmers.

The Rio Azul farmers’ union estimates that 70 percent of tobacco farmers will be unable to pay their debts this year. These debts will be added to next year’s expenses.

In 1997, tobacco exports represented one-third of Brazil’s agricultural income, after soybeans and coffee. Almost 300,000 tons of tobacco were exported, worth almost $1 billion. Corporate subsidies offered by the Brazilian government – such as lower taxes and cheap credit – make tobacco a very profitable business for multinational tobacco companies. After two decades of consolidation, Brazil’s tobacco market now is controlled by three large multinational corporations – Souza Cruz (owned by British-American Tobacco), Dimon (US) and Universal (US).

According to the Brazilian Association of Tobacco Growers (AFUBRA), there are approximately 209,000 tobacco farmers in Brazil, cultivating approximately 310,000 hectares (750,000 acres) of land. All of the country’s exported tobacco comes from the southern tobacco-growing states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.

The Role of Small Farmers
Tobacco production in Brazil is based on a system of small, 2.5 to 20 hectare (5 to 30 acre) family-run farms. Growing tobacco is labor-intensive. While growing maize only takes 265 hours of labor per hectare, growing tobacco takes 3,000 hours of labor. Usually, the entire family is involved in tobacco cultivation. Tobacco companies have asked for changes in school schedules so that children will be available to work when their labor is needed in the fields.

Tobacco companies exert a great deal of control over farmers. After signing a contract, farmers receive credit from the company to build “drying houses” to cure the harvested tobacco. Growers also must purchase seeds, fertilizers and pesticides from the tobacco company each season. The company determines the size of the area to be sown and the amount of fertilizers and pesticides to be used. To ensure that farmers are actually applying the fertilizers and pesticides, company inspectors visit the fields regularly. Costs of this “technical assistance” are added to the farmers’ bills.

The money used to build the drying house is deducted from the farmers’ earnings and it can take a family as long as five years to erase the debt. At the same time, the family also owes the company for seeds, pesticides and fertilizers. In many respects, growers are indentured servants of the tobacco companies. They often must use profits from other crops (usually maize, beans and onions) to pay the company when tobacco yields are low.

Farmers are liable for any damage to their tobacco that occurs in transit. Farmers do not know the price the company paid for their crop until they receive a receipt that also includes deductions for fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, technical assistance, taxes, yield insurance, etc. It is not unusual that instead of being paid for the tobacco they have grown, farmers find themselves pushed farther into debt.

In 1997, the Rio Azul farmers’ union in Paraná analyzed the cost of growing tobacco. After deducting the costs of pesticides, fertilizer, insurance, technical assistance and a minimum salary for two workers – and using the average price-per-kilogram paid by the tobacco industry – the union found that a farmer would wind up owing the tobacco company almost $500. (This figure does not reflect the unpaid labor costs of family members.)

Poisonings and Deaths
Selling pesticides and fertilizers is big business for tobacco companies. Each of Rio Azul’s 1,800 drying houses buys approximately $1,023 worth of fertilizers and pesticides annually. The tobacco companies receive almost $2 million per year just selling chemicals to farmers.

Many of the highly toxic pesticides used in tobacco production are banned in the US and Europe. According to the Health Secretary of Paraná, 9,540 cases of pesticide poisoning were reported from 1986 to 1997, with 919 deaths. In a 1993 study, farmers from São João do Triunfo Municipality in Paraná reported that use of pesticides had been increasing as the tobacco companies required higher levels of pesticide use than in previous years.

Good health care is not available for the poor in Brazil. When farmers or family members visit a clinic after being poisoned, doctors sometimes just hand out aspirin tablets.

Tobacco workers are the main victims of pesticide poisonings in southern Brazil. The victims include children, pregnant women and the elderly. When parents can no longer handle pesticides due to illness or increased sensitivity, their children are given this responsibility. It is not unusual to find 12-year- old children applying pesticides in the fields.

It is believed that organophosphate pesticides can cause depression. Under the added stress of debt, depression can turn suicidal. One debt-ridden Rio Azul farmer committed suicide by drinking Furadan (carbofuran), leaving behind a wife and nine children, six under 18 years of age.

Sustainable Production?
Farmers are beginning to question the use of toxic pesticides. While organic tobacco production is possible, tobacco companies are unlikely to support any changes that would cut into the high profits they receive from sales of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Government support – in the form of credit, price guarantees and insurance for weather-related crop failures – could give farmers an opportunity to free themselves from tobacco companies and from growing a crop that threatens their health, and sometimes even their lives.

Local leaders still believe that farmers’ organizations have a chance to change government policies. If we think on an even larger scale, a global alliance of farmers and consumers might change the nature of the tobacco industry sooner than anyone has ever imagined.

Angela Cordeiro, Francisco Marochi and José Maria Tardin are members of the Paraná Project, which works with farmers’ unions and small farmers associations to promote agroforestry, ecological soil management, organic food production and the conservation of local genetic resources.

From The Pesticide Campaigner[Pesticide Action Network North America, 49 Powell St., No. 500, San Francisco, CA 94102, (415) 981-1771, panna@panna.org, www.panna.org/panna].