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Omaha Steve

(99,660 posts) Sun Jan 4, 2015, 10:58 PM Jan 2015

NYT: A Ban on Child Labor in Tobacco Fields

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/29/opinion/a-ban-on-child-labor-in-tobacco-fields.html

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDDEC. 28, 2014

Responding to a damning report this year by Human Rights Watch, some cigarette companies and growers have said they will voluntarily restrict child labor in tobacco fields. Though welcome, these steps should be reinforced by new federal rules.

Children as young as 7 are working on tobacco farms in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, often alongside their parents, the report says. This is a perfectly legal practice under federal labor laws and regulations if the parents allow it. Some of the children reported that they suffered from nausea, dizziness and vomiting, all symptoms of nicotine poisoning.

This month, the tobacco companies Altria and R.J. Reynolds said they would start requiring that farmers they buy tobacco from not use workers younger than 16. The Council for Burley Tobacco, which represents growers, adopted a resolution in July stating that it “does not condone the hiring of anyone under the age of 16 for work in tobacco anywhere in the world.” Philip Morris International had previously said it would set the minimum age at 18 for its growers.

Given Big Tobacco’s shameful history of marketing cigarettes to children, it is noteworthy that the industry is willing to do the right thing in the case of child workers. Even so, the federal government should move to prohibit anyone younger than 18 from working in this industry, given the risk of exposure to nicotine, which can be absorbed through skin contact with tobacco plants and can hurt brain development in young people.

FULL story at link.

6 replies

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Highlight:

NYT: A Ban on Child Labor in Tobacco Fields (Original Post) Omaha Steve Jan 2015 OP

I remember cutting it when I was about 8-9 years old. Quackers Jan 2015 #1

FFA? Go Vols Jan 2015 #3

Jesus, could you imagine a school growing tobacco today? Recursion Jan 2015 #6

I picked tobbaco in Connecticut when I was in High School! yortsed snacilbuper Jan 2015 #2

We used to grow dark fired tobacco dem in texas Jan 2015 #4

Big tobacco loves to make it more expensive for family tobacco farmers Recursion Jan 2015 #5

Quackers

(2,256 posts)

1. I remember cutting it when I was about 8-9 years old.

Reply to Omaha Steve (Original post)

Sun Jan 4, 2015, 11:01 PM

Jan 2015

We also grew it at school, stripped it, bailed it, and judged it. Times do change though.

Go Vols

(5,902 posts)

3. FFA?

Reply to Quackers (Reply #1)

Mon Jan 5, 2015, 12:13 AM

Jan 2015

Recursion

(56,582 posts)

6. Jesus, could you imagine a school growing tobacco today?

Reply to Quackers (Reply #1)

Mon Jan 5, 2015, 01:07 AM

Jan 2015

Times definitely change

yortsed snacilbuper

(7,939 posts)

2. I picked tobbaco in Connecticut when I was in High School!

Reply to Omaha Steve (Original post)

Mon Jan 5, 2015, 12:04 AM

Jan 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/23mainct.html?pagewanted=all

dem in texas

(2,674 posts)

4. We used to grow dark fired tobacco

Reply to Omaha Steve (Original post)

Mon Jan 5, 2015, 01:03 AM

Jan 2015

Back in the 70's we lived in western Tennessee near Kentucky Lake (my husband worked for the TVA) and we grew dark fired tobacco (this type of tobacco is used for making snuff and chewing tobacco). In that area, most farmers only had small tobacco allotments, the primary crops were corn, wheat and soybeans. We had an allotment for about 2 1/2 acres if I remember correctly. To the small farmer in that area, the tobacco was a labor intensive, but high cash return crop. When the tobacco sold, the farmer depended on the cash it brought to buy a new truck or tractor.

It did involve the whole family having to work the crop. We only used our kids when we needed to weed it and cultivate the plants, for all other work on the crop, we hired people to help. At that time, the unemployment in that area was over 20% and there were plenty of jobs created by the tobacco farmers to give people income. When it was time to plant you had to pay people to help you put the plants in the field. If you did not have children to help, you had to hire people to help you keep the crop weeded and pick off suckers. When it was time cut the tobacco, you hired the young men to cut it and hang it in the barns. After it was fired, you paid the young men to take it down from the barns. Then had to be stripped and you hired the elderly to strip the tobacco off the stalks so it could be sold. So throughout the year, you were giving part-time income to a lot of people who really needed the money.

When we were growing it, the prices were high, but I understand that the Chinese started growing dark fired and the US prices went down, so I am glad we moved to Texas. I think the pesticides and weed killers sprayed on the crop would be more dangerous than the tobacco leaves.

Recursion

(56,582 posts)

5. Big tobacco loves to make it more expensive for family tobacco farmers

Reply to Omaha Steve (Original post)

Mon Jan 5, 2015, 01:06 AM

Jan 2015

I mean, I support this decision, but we might as well be honest about that: it's a way for RJR, etc., to make it unprofitable for the remaining smallhold tobacco farmers to keep farming. A lot like how the big slaughterhouses lobbied hardest for meat safety regulations, because they knew their smaller competitors couldn't afford them.

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