Ethics and Economics of Tobacco Farming: A Case Study of Rural Bangladesh

Tobacco is being dealt as one of the major cash crops which are largely grown in Kushtia, Chittagong Hill, and northern regions of Bangladesh.Actually it is a non‐food plant used as a basic raw material for products that is proved to be harmful for health, environment and society.Tobacco is both dangerous and addictive. Its production thus raises ethical questions. The study is aimed to estimate the factors affecting tobacco yield and investigate whether any ethical issues influence the production behavior of tobacco farmerin Lalmonirhat district. Both primary and secondary data are used in this paper. Primary data is collected from 100 farmers using simple random sampling method from Aditmariupazila of Lalmonirhat district. are used .To estimate the influencing factors including ethics on the tobacco yield, both multiple linear and double log regression model are used. Tabular method is followedto describe the socio-economic profile and explore ethical consideration of tobacco farmers regarding its cultivation. The result shows that actually major farmers have no ethical concerns about tobacco farming. It also reveals that the majorities of tobacco farmers are reluctant to leave its production though they claim that tobacco production is unethical. The linear regression result of tobacco yield shows that the variables fertilizer, pesticides, seed,labors,support from the company, and land quality are positively significant to affect the tobacco yield. From the normative point of view, ethical concern of the farmers would be negatively related with their tobacco yield. But the paper finds an insignificant relationbetween ethics and tobacco yield.