Wardie talks about the multiple impacts of tobacco farming and the challenges to create a sustainable alternative.
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Wardie Leppan Senior Program Specialist Research for International Tobacco Control International Development Research Centre Abstract: With more than 70% of the world’s smokers residing in developing countries, tobacco consumption is clearly a growing and important health issue. While this has played a major role in the shift in the epidemiology of disease in the south (to the so-called “double burden” of infectious and non-communicable diseases), the impacts, it is argued go beyond health. Tobacco, the author suggests, needs to be addressed as a development issue, and not only as a health issue. Tobacco cultivation, production, distribution and use raise a broad range of economic, social, environmental and health questions. An example of small-scale tobacco farming is used to illustrate the point (something that is clearly recognized in Article 17 of WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control). This analysis has helped to inform the funding priorities of the Research for International Tobacco Control (RITC) program of IDRC. These funding priorities and the various funding modalities, as well as eligibility issues (such as the need for the research to be southern-led and defined), are covered in the final portion of the presentation.
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