A tobacco firm in Oruba-Ragana ward, Suna West constituency

Tobacco farmers in Migori want the government to quickly intervene on the sector to save it from exploitation by multinationals companies.

Farmers have raised their concerns that even when the government gets 19 billion in taxes from tobacco, nothing is done for them to improve their welfare.

The farmers have complained of delayed payments by Mastermind Tobacco Company to the tune of over 400 million since January 2015.

The farmers have also complained of Alliance one company not buying their produce (tobacco).The produce is still at homes with nowhere to deliver/sell.

The farmers have also blamed multinational BAT Company of changing marketing places to one central point in Oyani without giving farmers notice. They stay in the buying point for over 1 week before they sell their tobacco.

These problems have resulted in children not going to school because of lack of school fees and farmers are very disillusioned and threatening to abandon the crop.

All the companies have adamantly refused to honour farmers’ deduction forms of subscriptions to their association and they are seeing a sinister motive of wanting to kill the association that champions for their rights through lobbying.

Through their association (Kenya tobacco farmers association), they are now appealing to the government both national and county to come in and assist in compelling the companies to style up through proper regulations of the sector. They also want the ministry to look for alternative crops that can be grown in the area so that they abandon growing tobacco

Tobacco is regulated under CAP 321 of 1994 which is very old, not farmer friendly and lacks agribusiness interventions. “The ministry of agriculture should move with speed to review the tobacco regulations so that they are in line with agribusiness concepts and international trends.”