A new study into one of the world's most popular tobacco leaf production processes has revealed its particularly damaging harms to the environment and how it impacts farmers’ lives in Zimbabwe.

Published today, research by the Tobacco Control Research Group, part of the University of Bath’s Centre for 21st Century Public Health, highlights the outcomes of flue-cured Virginia tobacco production, including the destruction of 60,000 hectares of Miombo woodland each year, and an economic context that prevents farmers from diversifying into less damaging crops or production methods.

A damaging production process

Flue-cured Virginia tobacco (FCV) is used in cigarettes and other tobacco products sold worldwide. Harvested leaves are hung in a curing barn, which is heated for several days. This procedure is the endpoint of a production process producing leaves high in sugar and with low levels of nicotine, desirable to the tobacco industry.

Lead author of the study, Dr Rosemary Hiscock, a Research Associate in the University of Bath’s Department for Health, says governments and public health organisations should consider measures to restrict the use of FCV, similar to existing restrictions on other tobacco product components such as flavour additives.

She says: “Flue-cured Virginia tobacco has several clear negative consequences. Huge areas of Miombo woodland, the world’s largest dry tropical forest with a particularly rich ecosystem, are cut down each year to fuel the curing process, contributing to climate change.

“Most farmers are smallholders who can only afford to produce tobacco by being contracted to tobacco buying companies. These companies give them loans so they can buy agrochemicals that FCV production relies on, but the contract means they only sell back to the company that they have a contract with. The company therefore controls the prices as there is no competition.

“They pay farmers enough to discourage them from attempting to diversify into other crops, but too little for farmers to have capacity to protect Miombo woodland or even successfully grow replacement seedlings.

“Major tobacco companies provide glossy brochures depicting supposed sustainable production. However, on the ground, these activities don’t seem to be reaching many of the poorest tobacco farmers.”

Zimbabwe is among the world’s top producers of FCV – the product accounted for 99.95% of the nation’s tobacco leaf exports. These exports are worth around $1 billion USD, more than 2% of the nation’s GDP.

Co-author Dr Michael Bloomfield from the Centre of Development Studies explains: “Tobacco companies in countries like the US and China increasingly offshore flue curing to low- and middle-income countries like Zimbabwe, with less strict oversight, effectively outsourcing deforestation.”

Protecting the environment and farmer diversification are addressed in the international tobacco control treaty (The WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control) under Articles 18 and 19.

Dr Bloomfield adds: “Globally support is required for building up alternative crops and markets. A stable market for other crops would help farmers take the risk of switching. Reafforestation efforts should be targeted to compensate for legitimate uses of wood rather than, in effect, supporting the continuation of the production of tobacco products which kill one in two long term users.”

The researchers suggest interventions to reduce demand for FCV should be considered in line with treaty Articles 9 and 10 which cover tobacco product content.

Dr Hiscock concludes: “People who use tobacco products should be informed of the different leaves and the consequences of their production methods in the products they’re buying, and the damage they are doing to the environment.”

Previous work carried out by the University of Bath investigating tobacco supply includes its award-winning documentary Tobacco Slave. This documentary explores the exploitation of tobacco farmers in Malawi and the connections between present day tobacco farming and harmful colonial practices of the past.

The Tobacco Control Research Group also publishes and maintains the Tobacco Supply Chain Database, a tool containing information on the what the tobacco supply chain is, where it is located and who is involved.

The research paper, Flue cured tobacco in Zimbabwe: a particularly harmful commodity requiring the attention of Tobacco Control, is published in the journal Tobacco Control today, 13 January 2026 (DOI: 10.1136/tc-2025-059570).