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Tobacco farmers have appealed to the Centre to allow them to take part in the upcoming Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s (FCTC) Conference of Parties (COP7) meeting, scheduled to be held in India.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is holding the meeting from November 7-12 this year.
“The decisions the meeting might take will have an impact on the livelihoods of millions of tobacco farmers and farm labour,” BV Javare Gowda, President of the Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA), has said.
“Farmers should be allowed to participate in the deliberations as it will help them understand the future course of actions being proposed by the WHO on tobacco control,” he said, in the appeal made to the Centre.
FAIFA has also written to the FCTC Secretariat asking it to allow the farmers’ representatives to take part in the November conference.
“It is a matter of great concern for us that FCTC decisions in the past were made behind closed doors. It is clear that the interests of tobacco growers are not represented in the debates, especially when the decisions arrived at during the Conference have direct bearing on the lives of tobacco growers,” he pointed out.
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