Experts for concerted efforts by ministries to contain tobacco 

Tobacco cultivation can be stopped if the health, agriculture and environment ministry work together and the farmers are encouraged with some incentives to cultivate rice, wheat and corn in their lands, experts said.

They said this in a discussion on the harmful effects of tobacco on the environment and climate change on Sunday at the Dhaka Ahsania Mission auditorium at the capital's Dhanmondi. 

Health sector of Dhaka Ahsania Mission in collaboration with Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) organised the programme.

Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Shahab Uddin was present as the chief guest at the programme.

In his speech, Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) Chairman Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad said that tobacco destroys the national and family economy. The family economy is affected when the person dies simultaneously troubling the national economy. Their future becomes bleak while criminal inclination increases, he added.

Regarding the failure to control tobacco in the country, he noted that earlier, tax on cigarettes had three slabs which was raised to four later. Currently, tobacco is being cultivated on 1.5 lakh hectares of land. The government is not restricting tobacco cultivation as British and Japanese tobacco companies pay a lot of VAT. The government has less than 1% ownership of the two companies which should be canceled, he opined.

Iqbal Masud, director of health and Wash sector of Dhaka Ahsania Mission presented the keynote paper at the event.

He said that 12 kg of wood is required to burn one kg of tobacco while one tree is felled to produce 300 cigarettes and 3.7 liters of water is consumed for one cigarette.

The annual income from tobacco is Tk22,810 crore against the health-related losses worth Tk30,560 crore, he told the programme. 

Iqbal Masud said that tobacco filters are among the top environment polluters in the world. About 4.5 trillion used cigarette filters are littered every year which takes 10 years to mix with nature. 

Referring to various data, he said that 3.78 crore adults use tobacco in Bangladesh while 3.08 crore are indirectly affected. Around 31% of deforestation in Bangladesh takes place due to tobacco cultivation while 85,000 tons of firewood is burned annually to dry tobacco leaves.

About 2,00,000 hectares of forests are being destroyed for tobacco cultivation and leaf burning, Iqbal Masud added.

Environment Minister Shahab Uddin said that trees are being destroyed because of tobacco and the tobacco farmers plant and use trees to burn tobacco. 

"Afforestation has been completed on 17% of land which should be increased to 24%. We can start activities to stop tobacco cultivation from this year which will be successful by 2024," he added.