World No Tobacco Day 2023: Planetary healthy food, not tobacco!

Webinar, Thursday, 25 May 2023, 3-5 p.m. (CEST)

Join us for our virtual three-course meal on how to build global momentum for a planetary health diet that is good for people and the planet – without tobacco.

You can find the webinar recording here.

Tobacco growing contributes in many countries to food insecurity and malnutrition. Seven out of the ten countries with the largest tobacco growing areas are low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa. If food crops were planted instead of tobacco in these seven countries, 11 million people could be fed.

On World No Tobacco Day 2023, the World Health Organization is highlighting alternative livelihoods for tobacco farmers. Switching from tobacco to food crops can help reduce food insecurity and malnutrition. The choice of food crops as alternatives also has an impact on the climate. Food crops supporting a planetary health diet can benefit people and the planet.

A planetary health diet means that people should be able to feed themselves locally and sustainably and to live in a tobacco-free environment. And although there’s a lot to consider, it’s not difficult. There is knowledge and there are plenty of practical ideas and best practice examples.

What hampers the implementation of a Planetary Health Diet?

One of the barriers is the role of global corporations. Food corporations are following the example of the tobacco industry’s decades of success. In response to government interventions in the name of public health, tobacco companies have been developing strategies to continue profiting: They put the responsibility for health on the individual, downplay and distort scientific evidence, and fund studies to claim that their products are not as harmful as scientific evidence shows.

But tobacco control has shown which policies are successful in limiting corporate power: taxes, advertising bans, information. In the area of nutrition, there are even more opportunities, and community catering could play a pioneering role in planetary health diets.

In our webinar, we want to discuss how to get policy makers to adopt policies that protect public health and the planet.

Join us for our three-course meal (recording)!

1) Starter – Clarifying what we are talking about

• What is planetary health diet? – Margarethe Scheffler and Kirsten Wiegmann (Öko-Institut, Germany)
• Why is tobacco a barrier to planetary health? – Sonja von Eichborn (Unfairtobacco, Germany)

2) Main course – Learning from successful strategies

• How to take on Big Tobacco and its allies – Paula Johns (ACT Health Promotion, Brazil, tbc)
• How to take on Big Food with information – Philip Jakpor (CAPPA Africa, Nigeria)
• How to grow organic, healthy food instead of tobacco – Farida Akhter (UBINIG, Bangladesh)

Discussion of future strategies to achieve Planetary Health

3) Dessert – An artistic approach to Planetary Health

• Look forward to a Surprise !

Moderator: Saskia Richartz (Ernährungsrat Berlin, Germany)

Languages: English, German interpretation

This webinar for World No Tobacco Day 2023 is intended for civil society actors.

Watch the webinar recording here.

The event is sponsored by Engagement Global with financial support 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), Misereor and the Oskar-Helene-Heim Foundation.