Chapter 30 Tobacco farmers

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More people work on tobacco farms than in cigarette plants, but the manufacturing

jobs are year-round and better paying. The average yearly salary of a tobacco farmer

in North Carolina is 5,600 U.S. dollars. The salary of those employed in the tobacco

manufacturing industry is 43,750 U.S. dollars per annum, or 8 times more. While

tobacco farmers have to pray for a couple of pennies annual increase in the price of a

pound of tobacco, the tobacco industry makes billions of dollars in profit. When profits

for BAT totaled 1 billion pounds in 1992, the chairman Sir Patrick Sheehy got a 54%

annual salary increase to 980,000 pounds. The retiring chairman of Philip Morris did

even better. He received a bonus of $26 million

Quote from Tobacco and Health, p. 69

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The American tobacco producers have no problem with the kind of variety that they

grow, nor with the quality of their leaf. The problem of the American growers is the

price, which is twice as high as comparable leaf from Zimbabwe or Brazil. In 1993,

U.S. cigarette companies used an estimated 45% of imported tobacco. That was up

from 30% just three years earlier. American tobacco growers were alarmed by this

development and asked their members of Congress to limit the imports of foreign

tobacco. Effective lobbying by the farmers resulted in the domestic content law that,

from 1st January 1994, severely penalizes any U.S. cigarette manufacturer whose

cigarettes contain more than 25% foreign leaf. The immediate result of the law was

that the import of tobacco leaf in the U.S. decreased in 1994 by 44%. The long term

effect of the law is probably that it will do more damage than good to American

growers. A report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted that some U.S.

manufacturers may shift cigarette manufacture abroad (to Mexico for instance) in an

effort to continue using cheaper foreign tobacco. This law appears to be incredibly

hypocritical, protectionist and a clear contravention of the Gatt Agreement.

Quote from Tobacco and Health, p. 68 (Luk Joossens)

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Monday, July 24, 2000

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