Abstract:
The objectives of the research titled "The Path of Traditional Cigarette: Tobacco Farmers, Cigarette Producer, Trader and Consumer" are twofold. Firstly, to examine the evolution, adaptation and expansion of traditional cigarette, especially those related with tobacco control policy of the government. Secondly, to study behaviors of agents involved in the path of traditional cigarette. The target groups of the research include tobacco growers, middlemen, traditional cigarette factories, traders and consumers. The data of traditional cigarette factories was collected in Nongkai, Roi-Et, Nakornpanom, Chaiyaphume, Petchaboon Chaingrai and Nakornsawan. For the tobacco farmers, middlemen, trader and smokers, data was collected from a selected district in the province of Roi-Et, Nongkai, Pethcabun and Chiangrai, by using questionnaire, semi- structure interview guide and focus group discussion. The findings of this study are summarized below. Farmers who grow tobacco for traditional cigarette were found scattering in numbers of provinces of the North and the Northeast of Thailand that the soil is suitable to grow tobacco. Growing tobacco and traditional cigarette have been long time ago and were integrated into ways of life of people. Traditional tobacco has been adapted to changes in socio-economic and tobacco control policy of the country. In previous farmers in the studied area grew tobacco for their own consumption or for barter trading with other goods with those who did not grow. When state took tobacco industry and growing tobacco was promoted, these farmers turned to grow tobacco for tobacco station of the Ministry of Finance. Since the past two decades the price of cigarette from the state industry has steady increased, as a result of the rise of consuming tax following the tobacco control policy of the state. This on the one hand stimulated the spur of traditional tobacco, which the product has not been subject to the same tax and the price is much lower. On the other hand demand of tobacco leaf of the state industry has been decline. Tobacco farmers supply their products to both the tobacco station of the Ministry of Finance and traditional cigarette businesses. In Roi-Et, farmers sale their products solely to exporters. A number of farmers in other areas were found supplying their entire products to the traditional cigarette businesses. The varieties grown were both those promote under the state industries, i.e. Virginia and Burley, and local variety such as Vigon, Dok Huk Noi and E-Dum. For the middlemen, in previous they play an important role in distributing shopped-dried tobacco leaf to consumers. When export of tobacco was allowed around two decades ago, the role of the middle men expanded to gathering and storing tobacco for the exporters. These middlemen became suppliers of the traditional cigarette when these businesses spurred. The factories of traditional cigarette are found varying in size, ranging from a few ton per year to more than several hundreds. Some of these factories have operated for more than 80 years, suggesting that traditional cigarette has been evolved long time ago. There are several factories that found newly operated due to the spur of demand traditional cigarette recently. Methods for producing traditional cigarette are simple. Tobacco leaf will be shopped and dried by the farmers. The factories stored and mixed shopped tobacco leaf to make the tastes to be consistent to the consumers. Shopped tobacco leaf will be packed, usually with wrapped paper inside the package. The products of traditional cigarette are not under the official regulation or law concerning the standard quality of the products. The traders or the distributors of traditional cigarette to the consumers were found generally small grocery shops in the locals. The average amount of sale of these shops was found at small amount. This might be due to the fact that the farmers or the smokers of this study retained part of their products for their own consumption. Even though, if we take the amount of the grocery shops that scattering in every corners of into account, the volume of traditional cigarette consumption would be huge. The sale of traditional cigarette is not subjected to the regulation that enforced to the modern cigarette. For the smokers, the majority of them were found to be middle age, low level of education and low income groups. Some of them had in previous smoke modern cigarette, they turned to traditional cigarette because of the increase in price of modern cigarette. Although most of these smokers are aware of the harm of smoking, they perceived that traditional cigarette is saver than modern cigarette. This study recommends that the policy regarding traditional cigarette needs to be revised. This is especially the growing areas and varieties that would be used for traditional cigarette, the quality control of the products from the businesses (factories) and tax policy. It is also recommended that measures other than taxation to control traditional cigarette should be studied and promoted.
TRC Data Center