A store front near a tobacco farm in Western Kenya. Stores like these sell sugar, cooking oil and other basic commodities. Many small farmers due to high debts for inflated costs for inputs and low prices per kilogram paid by tobacco companies are unable to buy the goods their families need.

Child laborer stands in a tobacco field, Andhra Pradesh, India. Kids as young as seven years old in India are engaged in watering young tobacco plants, weeding, harvesting, and tying and untying tobacco. Philip Morris purchases leaf produced by child laborers in India and uses the leaf in major global cigarette brands.

Tobacco leaves produced in over 120 countries. Kenya and other tobacco growing developing countries account for 80% of the world’s unmanufactured tobacco and are key contributors of leaf to global markets. Read more in THE TOBACCO ATLAS'S Chapter 13 "Tobacco Growing."

Close up of words "Total Land Care" etched in cement at water pump in Mchinji, Malawi. Total LandCare, a nongovernmental organization registered and operating in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania, is based on activities of the International Research and Development Department at Washington State University, Pullman, US. Total LandCare received a grant of $4.9 million from Philip Morris (2005-10) for Total LandCare's project "Enhancing Rural Livelihoods in Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique." In September 2010, Altria announced additional funding of $2.5 million to Total LandCare, allowing...

Watch the short clip that is on the main DVD for Up In Smoke, a video I produced about harmful health and socio-ecological practices of tobacco companies in Malawi (2003). Click here for additional details on Up in Smoke. The cover of the DVD is below. Here is the Up in Smoke study guide: http://www.fairtradetobacco.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/StudyGuide_upinsmoke.pdf

A teaser video for a digital ethnography project of mine I'm developing on the health and socio-ecological costs of tobacco farming in developing countries, and corporate practices to present cigarette makers as friends of farm workers and stewards of the environment.

Women weeding in tobacco fields in Andra Pradesh, India. Photo by Ron Sakomoto, November 2009.

In the Lilongwe Auction in 2000, Malawi's largest tobacco marketplace, workers without shoes, run with leaf to holding areas. At auction, buyers often reject tobacco due to mixed grades of leaf or sellers reject prices offered by buyers. Later in the season, rejected tobacco is re-presented for sale on the auction floors. US leaf buyers purchase virtually all of Malawi's tobacco, in some cases paying $0.70 per kilogram, about three times lower than what a farmer needs to cover costs and meet basic needs.

In Argentina, kids work alongside their parents stringing tobacco, November 2009.

Philip Morris depot located near tobacco growing area south of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, March 2011. Company representatives buy leaf from small farmers, often downgrading (assigning a lower quality to) leaf.