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The International Tobacco Growers’ Association’s (ITGA) annual regional meeting of the Americas this year gathered associations from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and the US. The Brazilian association, Afubra, organized this meeting, making it coincide with another Afubra event, Expoagro, the biggest family farming fair in Brazil.
In his opening speech, Daniel Green, president of ITGA, talked about ITGA’s important role in helping moderate the global imbalance between tobacco supply and demand in order to maintain stable prices. With this aim, during the ITGA AGM in 2016 a new line of strategy was adopted, focusing on the sustainability of the sector by implementing the right policies which will help the supply chain to face the many challenges threatening the sector and countries depending on tobacco.
Green also said that, following this line of action ITGA is involved in combating child labor in tobacco growing countries and promoting educational programs through ITGA’s participation in the ECLT Foundation (Elimination of Child Labor in Tobacco).
According to data shown during the ITGA meeting, 5.6 trillion cigarettes are consumed globally, which represents a decline of 1.8% between 2014 and 2015. The estimates point to 20.4% adult smokers with a turnover of US$698.5 billion, the price of US$3.08 per pack of cigarettes being the average. China represents 46% of the total global consumption. The Chinese cigarette market is 10 times bigger than the second largest one, Russia, followed by the US and Indonesia.
Green also discussed the global market situation for tobacco According to his data, 55% of cigarettes are made with Virginia including Chinese blend, 37% is American blend (cigarettes mixing Virginia, burley, and oriental varieties) and 8% other types. Virginia, reached 4 billion tons last season while the production of burley went beyond 600 thousand tons.
Antonio Abrunhosa, ITGA chief executive, talked about COP7 and projected some ideas about the coming COP8. “The subjects discussed in those meetings is technical and the experience of the tobacco growers is not taken into consideration, he said. “The participation in COP meetings is still mainly of health delegates and NGO’s linked to health institutions even when the discussions are about crop diversification. We expected to be called in but not only did it not happen, but we were also banned from participating in the discussions.”
Heading into COP8, ITGA expects articles 9 and 10 (ingredients and disclosure) of FCTC to be handled with the previous procedures. Up to now, there has been very little agreement in this working group about the definition of ingredients and thus little advancement.
Abrunhosa also talked about ‘heat not burn’ products. “Here we are not speaking about a new market but about the adaptation of a potential market. I am convinced that we will have other similar products to the ones available right now very soon. The advantage for the tobacco grower is that, [opposed] to the electronic cigarette, with the ‘heat not burn’ products, which have tobacco inside, we have a higher guarantee of continuity for long-term production than we had three years ago, when [there were] only e-cigs, which need much less tobacco for their liquid nicotine.”