Tobacco industry belongs to developed countries, such as the USA, France, Britain, Germany, Japan, etc. With tobacco control measures well developed in the developed countries, the tobacco industry finds itself in difficult situation to operate in their original countries.
Under the pretext of technology transfer covered by globalization process, tobacco industry has found favorable field to operate in developing countries where there are no tobacco control policies or if they exist, they are not enforced to oblige the tobacco industry respect the rules.
Fertile lands used to grow food to feed people are used to grow tobacco. The technologies applied to make tobacco grow well lead to infertility of the lands, thus becoming improper to grow other crops normally used to feed the population.
This sad example comes from Mozambique, Manica Province where the so called Mozambique Leaf Tobacco Company, owned by Zimbabwean tobacco growers, is intensively promoting tobacco growing.
The question then arises, who benefits from tobacco business, the poor countries where tobacco is grown or the developed countries where the profits are transferred to?
This question is being put forward to the Mozambican government by tobacco control advocates, but the government seems to be comfortable with the tobacco industry in a deadly hope that the battle against poverty can be won by incrementing tobacco growing, processing and exportation.
It is within this very narrow scope of thinking influenced by the tobacco industry that the government of Mozambique is not willing to ratify the FCTC, a matter that will be dealt with in a special article.
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