VII. Responsibilities of Businesses Purchasing Tobacco in the United States The US is one of the top producers of unmanufactured tobacco in the world, behind China, Brazil, and India.369 Approximately 5.8 trillion cigarettes are consumed around the world annually.370 China is by far the largest market, accounting for nearly one-third of global consumption, but it is almost exclusively operated by a state monopoly, China National Tobacco. Excluding China, two-thirds of world industry volume in cigarettes and other tobacco products is produced by four major global tobacco companies: Philip Morris International (PMI), British American Tobacco (BAT), Japan Tobacco Group (JT), and Imperial Tobacco Group.371 In the United States, the largest manufacturing companies are Philip Morris USA (PM USA, a subsidiary of Altria Group), Reynolds American, and Lorillard. All of these companies publicly report that they do not own tobacco farms but purchase tobacco directly from tobacco growers or from leaf suppliers from many countries around the world, including the United States. In addition, the world’s largest leaf merchant companies, Alliance One and Universal Corporation, which, among other business operations, supply leaf tobacco to these and other tobacco manufacturers around the world, also purchase tobacco leaf from growers in the US. Some of these companies have a stated policy concerning child labor. All of the companies formally acknowledge certain standards found in International Labour Organization conventions. However, several companies appeared to apply standards, including a standardized industry program known as the US Tobacco Good Agricultural Practices Program, in their US operations that only require compliance with US law, while requiring adherence to ILO standards, including concerning child labor, in operations outside the US. As noted above, US child labor law falls well below international standards and fails to adequately protect children.
369 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Statistics Division (FAOSTAT), “Production, Countries by Commodity,
Tobacco, Unmanufactured, 2012,” August 2013, http://faostat.fao.org/site/339/default.aspx (accessed March 18, 2014). 370 Japan Tobacco Group (JT), “Annual Report 2013,” March 2013,
http://www.jt.com/investors/results/annual_report/pdf/annual2013_E_all.pdf (accessed February 11, 2014). 371 JT, “Annual Report 2013.”
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