Harmful tobacco farming is growing at an alarming rate in Dighinala, a hill upazila of Khagrachhari district. The toxic crop is spreading across farmland, around schools and colleges and along the banks of the Maini river. Food production is falling as a result, while the environment and public health face serious risk.

Although there is a policy, there is no effective effort in the field to control tobacco farming. Taking advantage of this, local and foreign tobacco companies encourage farmers with advance loans, supplies of fertiliser and seed, and a guarantee to buy the crop directly after harvest. The government's discouraging policy has in effect become ineffective. Dighinala, once rich in rabi crops and winter vegetables, is losing that tradition to tobacco, and now has to depend on vegetables brought in from outside to meet local demand.

On visits to several places in Merung, Kabakhali and Boalkhali unions of the upazila, tobacco was seen growing right up against primary schools, a college and playgrounds, with no regard for rules.

According to the upazila agriculture office, Dighinala covers 694.11 square kilometres, of which only 13.60 per cent is cultivable. This season 600 to 700-plus farmers are growing tobacco on about 568 hectares in the upazila, against about 500 hectares last year, an increase of roughly 60 to 68 hectares in a year. Tobacco is grown most in Merung, Kabakhali and Boalkhali unions.

Local tobacco farmers say there is no trouble selling tobacco because the company buys all the produce directly. Fertiliser and seed come in advance, so they need little capital of their own. Vegetables and other crops, by contrast, fetch low market prices with no guarantee of profit. Land under tobacco also fetches a higher sharecropping rent. That is why they are turning to tobacco.

The environmental impact, however, is severe. Tobacco is widely grown along the banks of the Maini river and the upazila's small streams, and the pesticides used in the fields are harming aquatic life. Fisherman Ruhul Amin said: "Before tobacco farming we used to get many kinds of small fish, crabs and shrimp in the Maini river and the small streams. Since tobacco farming started we don't get them any more."

About seven to eight hundred-plus tobacco curing kilns are now active in the upazila. Huge amounts of forest wood are burnt in them, rapidly clearing the hill forests, increasing soil erosion and destroying biodiversity.

Dr Tonoy Talukder, Dighinala upazila health officer, said long involvement in tobacco farming greatly increases the risk of breathing problems, cancer, heart disease and other complex illnesses. It is extremely harmful to public health, he said.

Md Shahadat Hossain, upazila agriculture officer, said Dighinala has already become known as a tobacco-dominated area. Tobacco farming has increased by about 50 to 60 hectares this year compared with other years. But this year there is no government incentive or special initiative on alternative crops to discourage it, he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.