International Tobacco Growers Association

ITGA (the International Tobacco Growers Association) was supported by BAT with the aim of promoting the economic benefits of tobacco growing. In this extract from a BAT document written by Shabanji Opukah, BAT’s corporate social responsibility manager, it is clear that ITGA is being used to avoid regulation on the industry with specific reference to the World Health Organisation’s Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI). There is also declaration of the intent to undermine a study by the World Bank which argued that ‘the negative effects of tobacco control on employment have been greatly overstated’ a claim that ITGA is used to deny.

‘our efforts to ensure we get the most from our investment in ITGA is paying back. ITGA agreed to dedicate themselves to a number of core big areas of concern TFI and the issue of economic impact…Objective is to rebut the world bank study and get third world governments on our side on the issue’

This document shows ITGA was funded by BAT but despite this funding great efforts were made to ensure the association was seen to be independent. This can be seen in a BAT company memo which emphasises the: ‘need to remember that this is an ITGA/ farmers initiative and they should be doing the writing to governments’ referring to the tactic of using ITGA to encourage farmers to lobby governments on the importance of tobacco growing to the economy. BAT uses this method of using third world tobacco growers as a front because they are seen to have the ‘moral high ground’ and more credibility than industry insiders.