Uganda
When management of Budongo forest in Masindi district of Uganda ordered British American Tobacco (BAT) to halt their operations in Buliisa district, farmers were hit by uncertainty until they resorted to growing other crops.
The affected were farmers in Kihungya and Biiso sub-counties, which are adjacent to the forest.
The farmers used to cut trees for poles to use in the construction of tobacco barns and tobacco leaf drying, but the forest authorities said the farmers were depleting the forest in the interest of tobacco growing.
For instance, one of the former tobacco farmers from Kihungya village, Abdul Karim Pasikale, said after the ban he ventured into maize and coffee. Another ex-tobacco farmer, Herbert Izooba, from Kalengeija B village in Biiso Sub-county, has shifted to growing cabbage and eggplants.
The Buliisa MP Stephen Biraahwa encourages farmers to grow multi-purpose crops that serve as cash and food crops or to practise intercropping. “I don’t support growing tobacco only because when a child goes hungry, it cannot be eaten and when it fails to get market, the farmer cannot eat it other than disposing of it,” he explained.