The Korea Tobacco Growers Organization reacted with outrage to the publication of new proposals to regulate tobacco farming by World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

KTGO said on Thursday that it has requested the government to oppose the WHO’s proposal saying that it will threaten tens of thousands of jobs in the farming sector.

The organization announced its opposition against the new proposal in Articles 17 and 18 in the FCTC, saying that reducing the number of tobacco farmers will automatically lead to the reduction of cigarette consumption.

It explained that the new proposal will ruin the tobacco farming industry as well as destroy the lives of tobacco farmers’ households, banning financial or technical support for farmers.

“The current proposals go far beyond the FCTC’s original mandate (Note 2),” KTGO chairman Lee Hae-kwon said in a statement.

He also said the WHO is designed to force all governments to put the tobacco farming industry out of business without providing them with any economically viable alternative crops.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)