Rationale

Tobacco is grown and processed around the world, under very diverse geographic, socio-economic and cultural conditions.  CORESTA members include equally diverse organisations, farmers, universities, non-governmental organisations, state monopolies, publicly listed companies, private companies, multinationals, local companies, government agencies, most of them with many years of experience in addressing sustainability locally and globally.

With this in mind, CORESTA launched a Task Force to develop the current guidelines designed to capture the sustainable tobacco production practices implemented by its members delivering the dimensions of environmental integrity, economic resilience, social wellbeing and governance.  These guidelines focus on four key areas:

• Governance
• Agronomy
• Curing
• Livelihoods

Work streams

The scope of these guidelines covers sustainable tobacco production through the responsible management of tobacco and addressing potential risks.  For the four key areas of Governance, Agronomy, Curing and Livelihoods, key challenges were identified in order to provide tobacco organisations with a set of tools and advice on the way to ensure the long term sustainability of tobacco production.

• Governance

The aim of these guidelines is to enable a common pre-competitive approach to address four sustainability dimensions: government structure, stakeholder engagement, farm performance and reporting benchmarks.

• Agronomy

These guidelines address sustainable practices and principles applied to water resource management, soil conservation and health, plant nutrition, integrated pest and disease management and biodiversity.

• Curing

These guidelines address various matters related to leaf curing, such as type and source of construction materials, fuel efficiency, management of the cure and proper handling.

• Livelihoods

These guidelines provide advice on practices that address relationships between farmers and companies, adequate remuneration for growers and workers, human rights, capacity building, land tenure, health and safety and access to credit.

Achievements

The Task Force was composed of 23 members representing 16 organisations covering various areas related to the tobacco business such as research, leaf production, manufacturing, tobacco derived products and supplies.

From its creation in 2012, the Task Force held several face-to-face and web meetings, during which the key issues relating the four work streams were identified and corresponding recommendations defined.

The Task Force published the first version of its Guide No. 17 - Sustainability in Tobacco Production in April 2016, containing 16 articles giving guidelines on sustainable tobacco production through the responsible management of tobacco growing. This Guide complements the CORESTA Guide No. 3.

The Task Force being disbanded, the Agronomy & Leaf Integrity and Phytopathology & Genetics (AP) Study Group made an in-depth review of the Guide in 2023 and published an updated version in February 2024.

Updated February 2024