Must our tobacco farming heritage go up in smoke?

Peter Hellyer

• Last Updated: July 06. 2008 9:57PM UAE / July 6. 2008 5:57PM GMT

The Ministerial Legislative Committee, whose task it is to review all new draft federal laws, recently approved the draft anti-smoking law – including a ban on smoking in public places, tightening up on tobacco imports, and forbiding the establishment of factories for tobacco products.

I have no disagreement with any of the above, even though I am, foolishly, still a smoker. Irritating though it is that I can no longer light up in many shopping malls – with, presumably, hotels, restaurants and other public places to follow – I recognise (as I would hope do most smokers), that such bans are not only virtually inevitable, but are also to be welcomed. Not only does it force me to cut down, but it means that non-smokers are affected less by second-hand smoking. Whether there is any scientific validity to the argument that second-hand smoking is a danger really doesn’t matter to me, although I am inclined to believe it is valid. The right to smoke should, in my view, be circumscribed by the rights of those who choose, wisely, not to do so.

There are other clauses to the draft law on which, however, I do have a few comments. First, according to press reports, there will be restrictions on tobacco advertising. I see no problem with that – it is already limited, and a few howls of protest from the advertising industry really shouldn’t matter.

Second, restrictions are to be placed on event sponsorship by tobacco companies. As far as I can recall, such events tend to be large-scale sporting events, like Formula One Grand Prix races. The Ferrari team is sponsored, very heavily, by Marlboro – and Ferrari has, of course, a strategic agreement with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, which not only owns five per cent of Ferrari, but has also signed a major sponsorship deal with the Italian firm.

To what extent, I wonder, have the draughtsmen of the law taken into account the fact that in November next year, Abu Dhabi will stage its own Formula One Grand Prix for the first time? Are the teams sponsored by tobacco companies to be told that they cannot participate? I doubt it. Or will they be told to take the names of their tobacco sponsors off the cars and assorted paraphernalia? I don’t think so. Or will the new law carefully sidestep the issue of sponsorship from tobacco firms for such events? It will be interesting to see.

Another clause in the law also caught my attention. It’s not of political significance, and is pretty much irrelevant in terms of public health or economic issues, but it is of relevance to the national heritage – and that is the proposal that the cultivation of tobacco in the UAE should be forbidden.

Most UAE residents, whether citizens or expatriates, including, perhaps, most or all of our legal draughtsmen, are probably unaware that there is a small-scale tobacco growing industry in the Emirates. You have to look hard to find it, but on small fields tucked away in the mountains, tobacco has been grown as a cash crop, probably for centuries, perhaps originally introduced from the Americas by the Portuguese.

The fields are often almost lost between the date palms, the cabbages, the alfalfa and the mango, papaya, lemon, lime and orange trees. The tobacco plants are carefully tended and watered, the leaves are cut and then dried, and they are then used by the farmers themselves or sold, not for use in the manufacture of cigarettes or cigars, but for smoking in the little one-puff-only pipes favoured by many UAE citizens. I would be surprised if the total value of the country’s tobacco crop was much more than a million dirhams a year, perhaps significantly less.

The latest Statistical Yearbook of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, suggests that the UAE’s annual production of tobacco is 1,000 tons – but I suspect that figure is an over-estimate. It’s certainly not a major part of the UAE’s agricultural economy and, in consequence, can have only the most minimal effect on the public health issues that arise out of smoking.

And yet this minor crop is an integral part of the traditional mountain agriculture of the Emirates, making its small contribution to the continued economic viability of keeping the wadi fields in use. It has, too, contributed to the country’s architectural heritage, through the little stone structures where the tobacco leaves are hung up to dry before they are sold.

Would it not be possible, even at this late stage, for the legal draughtsmen and the Ministerial Legislative Committee to look at this aspect of the draft law again? In many countries, ancient traditions are protected as being part of the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples. We have here no tradition of small boats going out to sea to harpoon whales – a tradition protected by law even in countries committed to protecting whales and dolphins from more modern methods of hunting. Growing tobacco is our UAE equivalent.

Is the traditional cultivation of tobacco here to be declared illegal simply because it hasn’t really been taken into account? When the draft law was discussed by the Federal National Council, did FNC members from tobacco-growing Emirates simply fail to consider the interests of the small-scale farmers whom they are supposed to represent?

I am perfectly happy for the new law to ban commercial-scale tobacco cultivation – that is an industry the UAE doesn’t need, and has never had. It would be a pity, though to consign this tiny part of the UAE’s heritage to history in the pursuit of an anti-smoking agenda without evaluating the possible impact of a ban on the viability of traditional agricultural practices that are already difficult to sustain.

Peter Hellyer is a writer and consultant specialising in the UAE’s history, heritage and environment