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  • Tanzania Orders Tobacco Buyers to Pay Farmers by Oct. 30

    Tanzania Orders Tobacco Buyers to Pay Farmers by Oct. 30

    Tanzania’s agriculture minister ordered tobacco-buying companies to clear all outstanding payments owed to farmers by Oct. 30, saying there is no justification for delays after tobacco has been sold. Agriculture Minister Daniel Chongolo issued the directive Oct. 3 during a meeting with tobacco industry stakeholders in Tabora, where farmers, Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Societies, buyers, and the Tanzania Tobacco Board discussed challenges, including rising input costs, market access, outdated tobacco-drying technology, and delayed payments to cooperatives and local governments.

    Chongolo also said the government has delayed announcing new tobacco input prices while negotiating lower costs for farmers. He directed stakeholders to hold discussions within 10 days to secure more affordable prices and ordered fertilizer to be distributed to farmers within two weeks. Tabora Regional Commissioner Gerald Mongella called for increased subsidies and faster progress on establishing a fertilizer factory in the region. Meanwhile, Tanzania Tobacco Board Tabora Zone Acting Manager Albert Charles said the number of tobacco buyers has increased from three in the 2020-21 season to 18, potentially giving farmers more market opportunities despite ongoing industry challenges.

    Alliance One Tobacco Tanzania announced that it completed payments to growers and other stakeholders for the 2026 tobacco marketing season, disbursing TZS169.7 billion ($64.7 million) across the tobacco value chain, according to Daily News Tanzania. Growers received TZS154.2 billion ($58.7 million) of the total, with the company saying it had fulfilled its payment obligations for the season.

  • TPA Brief Criticizes WHO Tobacco Treaty for Ignoring Evidence

    TPA Brief Criticizes WHO Tobacco Treaty for Ignoring Evidence

    The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) released a new policy brief today (October 20), “FCTC: The Wrong Lessons Learned,” by Roger Bate, a fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics, criticizing the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for drifting from its original mission of evidence-based policy. The paper argues that the treaty’s decision-making process has become obscured, ideological, and resistant to scientific debate—particularly around harm reduction products such as e-cigarettes and oral nicotine.

    “The FCTC has evolved into a closed process—hostile to scientific dissent, opaque in its deliberations, and resistant to consumer-driven innovation in tobacco harm reduction (THR),” the paper begins. “This paper argues that the FCTC has become a cautionary model for global public-health governance. Unless checked, this model risks entrenching an authoritarian and anti-scientific impulse across public health. The THR community must lead the counter-narrative—to reform tobacco control and safeguard the integrity of evidence-based policymaking.”

    Bate contends that the FCTC’s approach “demonizes safer alternatives despite real-world success,” preventing adult smokers from accessing less harmful products that could help them quit. He warns that the treaty’s governance flaws mirror broader problems in global health governance, including pandemic response. “A treaty built to reduce smoking deaths should evaluate tools by outcomes, not ideology,” he said.

    The brief calls for reforms, including open sessions at FCTC Conferences of the Parties (COPs), equal conflict-of-interest scrutiny, independent comparisons of cessation tools, proportionate youth protections, and fiscal accountability. TPA fellow Martin Cullip urged the WHO to “reassess the evidence on reduced-risk nicotine products” and improve transparency, warning that the FCTC’s current direction “has become an obstacle to global public health progress.”