World Food Day Event: Organic farming instead of tobacco production

Online Seminar, Wednesday, 15. October 2025, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. (CEST)

On the occasion of World Food Day, we invite you to join us for an early afternoon discussion: “Organic farming instead of tobacco production – good for the climate and the people.” Learn how farmers succeed in phasing-out tobacco cultivation in Brazil and Bangladesh and why organic farming methods are the future of agriculture.

Conventional monoculture farming, as is common in tobacco cultivation, harms the environment, damages the climate and endangers biodiversity. The curing process required for tobacco also accounts for more than half of the CO₂ emissions caused by the global cigarette industry. The majority of tobacco leaf traded worldwide is produced in the Global South. The people in the tobacco-growing areas pay the price for it: depleted soils, contaminated waters, cut-down forests.

On top of that, tobacco growing is not lucrative for most smallholder family farms, but is associated with exploitation, debt and poverty. In the tobacco sector, and in industrial agriculture in general, multinational corporations in particular are reaping huge profits – at the expense of people and the environment.

What could farmers grow instead of tobacco?

Phasing out tobacco cultivation could be a future-proof solution for smallholder family farms in the Global South, provided that the new crops and farming methods meet sustainability criteria. The new livelihoods should combine decent living and working conditions with the regeneration and protection of nature, and be economically viable. Agroecology, permaculture, regenerative agriculture or organic farming can achieve this and are practised worldwide.

What does it actually look like when farmers switch from tobacco to other sources of income?

On 15 October, we discuss this topic with experts from Brazil and Bangladesh. They will present how the transition from tobacco cultivation to organic farming could work and how it can be achieved.

Our discussion partners and their expertise are:

• Roni Carlos Bonow
  Coordinator of CAPA in Pelotas, Fundação Luterana de Diaconia (FLD), Brazil
  Organic vegetables and market access through government programmes
  
• Jahangir Alam Jony
  Director UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternatives), Bangladesh
  Using ecological principles to support the exit from tobacco cultivation

We will then discuss together. What support is necessary and useful for the smallholder farms in the agricultural transition? How can the marketing of new products be promoted? What framework conditions are important for this and how can they be achieved?

Brief introduction: Sonja von Eichborn, Director of Unfairtobacco

Chair person: Mireille Remesch, Agricultural Policy Advisor, Agrarkoordination.

Languages: Portuguese, English, German (simultaneous interpretation)

Please register here to participate.

Our online seminar on the occasion of World Food Day 2025 is addressed to civil society actors, media representatives and interested members of the public.

The seminar is held in cooperation with AGRARKOORDINATION.

The event is funded by ENGAGEMENT GLOBAL with funds from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), by Landesstelle EZ of the Berlin Senate, Evangelical Church Development Service (Brot für die Welt), the Foundation Oskar-Helene-Heim und the Foundation Umverteilen.