Tobacco farms drive major deforestation in Tanzania

Kizito Makoye in AlertNet: Cutting of trees for firewood to cure tobacco over the last few decades has been a major driver of deforestation and worsening extreme weather in Tanzania’s central western Tabora region, experts say.

But efforts to persuade tobacco farmers to adopt other crops is proving an uphill battle, not least because tobacco remains profitable and a major source of income in the region.

Emmanuel Mihambo, a peasant farmer from Usenge village in Tabora has been growing tobacco since the 1980s when his late father acquired a four hectare farm there. Over the years he has watched the forest that once surrounded his village gradually turn into barren ground.

 “The situation has changed a lot. Imagine that valley separating Usenge and Ntalikwa village used to be covered by a dense forest. You could often spot wild animals such as antelopes. But all the forest is gone,” he lamented

Today firewood is harder to come by, and a local group calling itself IGEMBE NSABO is urging small-scale farmers to abandon tobacco and turn instead to alternative crops such as sunflower, cotton, groundnut and maize....