School of Economics, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya.
Faculty of Medicine, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Tob Control. 2019 May;28(3):268-273. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2017-054213. Epub 2018 Jul 2.
The tobacco industry has used the alleged negative impacts on economic livelihoods for tobacco farmers as a narrative to oppose tobacco control measures in low/middle-income countries. However, rigorous empirical evidence to support or refute this claim remains scarce. Accordingly, we assess how much money households earn from selling tobacco, and the costs they incur to produce the crop, including labour inputs. We also evaluate farmers' decision to operate under contract directly with tobacco manufacturers and tobacco leaf-buying companies or to operate as independent farmers.
A stratified random sampling method was used to implement a nationally representative household-level economic survey of 585 farmers across the three main tobacco growing regions in Kenya. The survey was augmented with focus group discussions in all three regions to refine and enrich the context of the findings.
Both contract and independent farmers experience small profit margins per acre, with contract farmers operating at a loss. Even when family labour is excluded from the calculation, income levels remain low, particularly considering the typically large households. Generally, tobacco farmers enter into contracts with tobacco companies because they have a 'guaranteed' buyer for their tobacco leaf and receive the necessary agricultural inputs (fertiliser, seeds, herbicides and so on) without paying cash up-front.
Tobacco farming households enter into contract with tobacco companies to realise perceived economic benefits. The narrative that tobacco farming is a lucrative economic undertaking for smallholder farmers, however, is inaccurate in the context of Kenya.
烟草业曾以烟草种植户的生计受到负面影响为由，反对在中低收入国家采取控烟措施。然而，目前仍缺乏确凿的实证证据来支持或反驳这一说法。因此，我们评估了农户销售烟草的收入以及种植烟草的成本，包括劳动力投入。我们还评估了农户直接与烟草制造商和烟叶收购公司签订合同经营，还是作为独立农户经营的决策。
采用分层随机抽样方法，对肯尼亚三个主要烟草种植区的 585 名农户进行了全国代表性的农户经济调查。在这三个地区都进行了焦点小组讨论，以完善和丰富调查结果的背景信息。
无论是合同农户还是独立农户，每英亩的利润都很小，合同农户甚至还处于亏损状态。即使不将家庭劳动力计算在内，收入水平仍然很低，尤其是考虑到农户家庭的典型规模。一般来说，烟草农户之所以与烟草公司签订合同，是因为他们有一个“有保障”的烟叶买家，而且在不预付现金的情况下，他们还能获得所需的农业投入（化肥、种子、除草剂等）。
烟草种植户与烟草公司签订合同，是为了实现他们认为的经济利益。然而，就肯尼亚的情况而言，认为烟草种植是小农的一项有利可图的经济活动的说法并不准确。
