Impact of tobacco curing on the environment andsocio-economic aspects in the Urambo District

Abstract

Despite the efforts that have been employed to reduce tobacco curing related deforestation in many countries including Tanzania. The economic importance of tobacco production on employment creation and foreign exchange makes production continue to increase which increases the demand for wood fuel that results in deforestation. This study assessed the impact of the tobacco curing process on the environment and socio-economic aspects. This was achieved through a structured questionnaire and Specific Fuel Consumption (SFC) assessments. A cross-sectional study design was adopted whereby structured questionnaires were administered to 892 respondents who are tobacco farmers from nine Primary Tobacco Farmer Cooperatives in the Urambo district. Structured questionnaires’ data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel to determine the Cost-Benefit Analysis then subjected to SPSS for descriptive statistics. In addition, SFC data were employed to estimate annual woodland area cleared, carbon emission, and carbon dioxide hindered from sequestration. The results show that 95% of all tobacco farmers have been harvesting wood fuel from forest woodland. This caused tobacco related-deforestation of 6355.47 ha in 2018/19 that hindered 6 3554.73 tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide from sequestration. Also, the emission of 3 3366.24 tons of carbon dioxide was recorded during the curing process. Rocket barn version 2 (RB2) and traditional barn (TB) were observed to have higher net revenue compared to rocket barn version 3 (RB3) and standard barn (SB). For this reason, rocket barn and traditional barn are more preferred than rocket barn and standard barn. The findings also revealed the social aspects associated with tobacco curing including labor intensity and food insecurity. Based on these findings, it is recommended that to improve the sustainability of tobacco farming, alternative and affordable tobacco curing technologies should be instantly developed to replace wood fuel that poses problems of environmental degradation.