# The Political Economy of Tobacco Farming in Low-and Middle-Income Countries

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO · 2021 · $351,093

## Abstract

Summary
The World Health Organization reports that more than six million people die each year from tobacco-related
diseases. Moreover, changing markets have generated a dramatic shift in consumption from high-income
countries (HICs) to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and by 2030 more than 80% of the disease
burden from tobacco use will fall on LMICs. To help facilitate this shift, opponents of tobacco control – led
by the tobacco industry and even some governments – have successfully used the supposed harm from
tobacco control measures to smallholder tobacco farmers as a reason to slow, stop and even reverse
tobacco control interventions, particularly in LMICs. This complex nexus of economic, agricultural and public
health policymaking may prove to be home to one of the largest threats facing tobacco control. The
emerging battleground is concentrated in countries with weaker governance capacity, more politically
vulnerable governments and a greater economic reliance on tobacco, which includes many countries in
Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. While there is a small literature examining some of these
dynamics, there is a lack of cross-country and deep, individual-level evidence about the actual livelihoods of
these farmers and the political economic context in which these dynamics are unfolding. Understanding the
complexities of these livelihoods is a crucial component to addressing this challenge: helping policymakers
to develop strategies to integrate public health and agro-economic policies positively, and in particular, to
assist farmers in finding viable economic alternative livelihoods. Such policies supporting viable alternatives
are needed to counter many existing ones that serve to propel or entrench tobacco cultivation.
This project aims to fill the large research gap in this area by examining rigorously the economic lives of
these farmers, and the political and economic processes that frame their livelihoods, in four major tobacco-
growing LMICs – Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. To reach this aim, we will first collect and analyze
existing data and scholarship relevant to the economics and politics of tobacco farming in these regions.
Informed by these findings, we will implement individual-level economic surveys of nationally-representative
samples of farmers in four major tobacco-growing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. We will
complement the surveys with focus group discussions with farmers across the major tobacco-growing
regions of each case country. Finally, using the expert consultation of the in-country co-investigators, we will
extensively interview relevant actors in these countries, including relevant farmer organization
representatives, ministry officials, civil society advocates, representatives of intergovernmental
organizations, and industry representatives in order to illuminate the broader structures, policies and other
important contexts that frame farmers' livelihoods.
One of the project's ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10141332
- **Project number:** 5R01TW010898-11
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Jeffrey Drope
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $351,093
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2012-08-22 → 2023-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10141332

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10141332, The Political Economy of Tobacco Farming in Low-and Middle-Income Countries (5R01TW010898-11). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10141332. Licensed CC0.

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