Tobacco Asia

62 tobaccoasia Issue 6, 2026 November / December Europe brings regulation into the equation Grower concerns also extend beyond the farm gate because regulatory deci- sions can reshape the market for tobacco. The AGM's regional regulatory assessment shows that Europe remains divided over the direction and scale of further tobacco regulation. Poland provides a particularly clear example of the producer perspective. Its Ministry of Agriculture argued against proposals that would reduce support for to- bacco production, defended cultivation as an established regional agricultural activity and opposed a prohibition on filtered cigarettes. At the European Union level, the proposed Tobacco Taxation Direc- tive would extend the tobacco-tax framework to additional categories, includ- ing heated tobacco and nicotine pouches, while also addressing raw tobacco and illicit trade. The negotiations matter to growers because changes in taxation and product treatment can affect market conditions throughout the supply chain. The Commission's preferred approach includes substantial increases and a four-year transition for cigars, cigarillos, and some smoking tobaccos, with its impact assessment acknowledging potentially unprecedented increases for historically lower-taxed products. ITGA's regional assessment identifies 2026 and 2027 as an important positioning period, with the Commission proposal envisaging application from 2028. For producer countries, the issue is therefore not simply whether regulation becomes stricter. It is also how policymakers account for the agri- cultural and economic consequences of those decisions. The producer-country balancing act Brazil is not alone in facing this tension. Across Africa, tobacco remains structurally important to rural livelihoods, exports and foreign-exchange earn- ings in major producing economies including Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique. The regional regulatory report describes the central challenge as a bal- ance between tobacco-control policy and economic dependence. In these countries, tobacco simultaneously represents a public-health issue, a rural livelihood, an export commodity and a source of government revenue. Zambia provides a particularly relevant example. Its Tobacco Control Bill moved through parliament in 2026 and seeks to domesticate the FCTC while regulating tobacco and nicotine products, including their manufacture, sale, packaging, advertising and promotion. At the same time, the country separately amended its Tobacco Act. That means tobacco-producing countries can find themselves manag- ing two policy tracks at once: tighter regulation of tobacco and nicotine prod- ucts and policies governing the agricultural sector that depends on tobacco production. For growers, those two tracks cannot easily remain separate. Cigar growers face a different equation The cigar sector adds another dimension to the grower story. The Dominican Republic remains the strongest economic anchor among the cigar-producing countries examined in the AGM material. The government treats tobacco as a major employment, export, and agricultural priority, giving the sector sig- nificant political weight. Production for cigars increased from 14,355 tons in 2023 to 17,598 tons in 2024 and 17,702 tons in 2025, according to the ITGA member report. Nicaragua and Honduras also maintain significant premium-cigar pro- duction and export sectors, although their political positioning differs. Gua- temala combines cigar production with an increasingly strong public-health and FCTC position, while Colombia has taken firm pro-control positions at COP11. The AGM assessment argues that cigar-producing countries do not form a single political bloc. Economic exposure to premium cigars does not automatically produce a common position on tobacco policy. That makes engagement with agriculture, economy, and trade ministries particularly impor- tant. The economic role of cigar tobacco extends beyond manufacturing to employment, exports and rural development, but the extent to which governments recognize those links varies between countries. Giving growers a place in the debate The country reports presented through the ITGA AGM ultimately tell a story that cannot be cap- tured through global consumption figures alone. In Brazil, growers are challenging prices, grading, and purchasing conditions. In Malawi, weather and disease have pushed production be- low expected demand. In Zimbabwe, difficult growing and marketing conditions have reduced morale. In Zambia, growers face the uncertainty of increasingly variable weather. In Colombia, farmers who invested in curing infrastructure now face the loss of a major buyer. Argentina offers a more mixed picture. Growers in Misiones reported satisfaction with the 2025/26 season, supported by strong yields and im- proved selling prices, while Salta and Jujuy grow- ers gave a more neutral assessment after hail caused losses of around 15–21% in affected areas. Produc- tion costs, limited capital, economic conditions, and the potential effects of El Niño remain concerns. The US crop also faces weather-related un- certainty. The 2026 burley crop stands at 24.947 million kilograms and fire-cured production at 9.507 million kilograms. The flue-cured crop ex- perienced sharp weather extremes during the growing season, while harvest delays and produc- tion challenges added to the uncertainty. These differences matter because they dem- onstrate that there is no single "grower experi- ence." Conditions vary by crop, country, weather, market and regulatory environment. What connects them is the need for a vi- able commercial framework in which growers can make production decisions with some confidence. That is perhaps the clearest message to emerge from ITGA's 2026 AGM. The future of tobacco will continue to involve debates over regulation, taxation, new products, and consumption. But those debates also have a production side. For the growers represented by ITGA, the questions are immediate and practical: whether there will be a buyer, whether the price will cover rising costs, whether the crop will survive increas- ingly difficult weather, whether investments in in- frastructure will remain viable, and whether policy decisions will recognize the economic role of to- bacco production. Those questions will not have the same an- swers everywhere. But they will remain central to the future of the tobacco supply chain.

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