Tobacco cultivation in CHT
Tobacco cultivation in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) is posing a threat to public health and the environment.
Though it is strictly prohibited, the tobacco companies are doing brisk business cultivating tobacco, violating the rules. Besides, they motivate the farmers openly by offering incentives in cash to cultivate tobacco.
At least 60 to 70 thousand metric tones of firewood are being burnt in 2,000 tobacco processing kilns every year, causing depletion of reserve and natural forests and threatening the environment and ecology in the hills, say the environmentalists. Besides, it spoils the soil fertility almost totally and once tobacco is cultivated it's difficult to grow other crops on the same land. Some 7,000 farmers are involved with tobacco farming in the CHT.
Most of the farmers in Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachhari have been losing their interest in cultivating indigenous crops like paddy, banana, maize, cotton etc as they became defaulters of loans provided by tobacco companies. Farmers and labourers say the tobacco companies offer lucrative amount of money as loans to trap them. Sometimes the companies provide them with bank loans to cultivate tobacco. As a result farmers are cultivating tobacco.
Tobacco companies and farmers should be aware of the harmful impacts of tobacco cultivation.
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