Tobacco farming reduced in Jhenidah

While in many parts of the country hazardous tobacco farming is on the increase, from Jhenidah there is good news. Government officials and civil society activists have achieved considerable success in convincing the district's farmers to say no to tobacco.

Whereas last season 925 hectares of land in the district was dedicated to tobacco cultivation, this year tobacco is being grown on only 795 hectares. The farmers of Kotchandpur upazila meanwhile have avoided tobacco farming altogether.

Several farmers in Sailkupa upazila's Kirtinagar village said many have either ceased to grow tobacco or reduced the size of crops in consideration of the ill-effects on human health and enduring damage tobacco crops cause to the soil. They believe that within a few years tobacco farming in their area will be no more.

“For a long while I have suffered cough, headache and fever from working in tobacco fields,” says farmer Anwar Ali of sadar upazila's Tetultala village. “I would rather die unfed than work in tobacco fields anymore.”

The change in sentiment among farmers is the result of greater awareness of the dangers to health and soil fertility the crop poses. According to the deputy director of Jhenidah's agriculture extension department Shah Mohammad Akramul Haque, the movement against tobacco taskforce of concerned citizens, the anti-tobacco media alliance and department of agriculture extension officials have been able to coordinate efforts to educate farmers, the main cause of tobacco cultivation's decline.

In addition, field level officers of the agriculture extension department have been instructed to motivate farmers to grow other crops and not to supply fertilizer to farmers of tobacco as part of the government's anti-tobacco initiatives.

“Farmers have become aware of the implications of tobacco farming on human health and soil,” says Kotchandpur's agriculture officer Sheikh Sazzad Hossain. “Tobacco farming in the upazila has been replaced in favour of cotton.” In other areas onions, wheat, lentils and other crops have become favoured substitutes for tobacco.

The aim is to achieve a tobacco-free Jhenidah district within five years, a goal that Haque both hopes and expects to be realised.