Tobacco grower families: an institutional analysis of their quality of life and health

The health of both farmers and consumers of tobacco has attracted the attention of international organizations. The Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (FCTC), in its article 18, emphasizes the responsibility of countries with respect to protection of the environment and human health in the tobacco production process, since its cultivation brings serious risks to the environment and the health of farmers. Tobacco has established itself as one of the main agricultural products grown in the central region of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The production structure is made up mostly of small family farms with intensive use of labor of work and has in tobacco plants the main source of income. The purpose of the article is to identify the risks to which tobacco farming families are exposed and consequences on quality of life and health of workers in the rural areas. In research conducted by Lecours (2011), there is a series of impacts on tobacco farmer's health, the main risks associated with tobacco growing: the disease of green leaf, pesticide exposure, respiratory problems, and musculoskeletal injuries and skin diseases. The research is characterized as qualitative and descriptive and the data collection was carried out through field research, through semi-structured interviews and participant observation with producer families of tobacco, in the municipalities of Agudo and Paraíso do Sul. It can be seen that there are eminent risks highlighted in the literature on health of tobacco farmers, symptoms of green leaf disease were highlighted by most families, besides the exposure to pesticides. It is noticed that the FCTC controls are still weak and do not look to the risks of tobacco in the first link in the chain, which are the families that produce it.