Korea may not be ready to accept the anti-tobacco recommendations handed down by the World Health Organization, namely those banning tobacco makers from openly endorsing social benefits such as charity events.

Also, the other proposals being mulled by the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control are unlikely to reduce the number of smokers or make them stop, according to the International Tobacco Growers’ Association.

“(The recommendation on social benefits) may break the link between the clients and tobacco farmers because clients will no longer see the benefit of working with the tobacco farms,” said ITGA president Francoise van der Merwe on Monday. The clients here indicated the cigarette companies.

The ITGA is a nonprofit organization representing tobacco farmers around the world. It held a press conference on the sidelines of the tobacco convention meeting held in Seoul this year.

As the host country, Korea is poised to fully adopt a 2005 agreement under which all tobacco companies are banned from publicly sponsoring social events and campaigns. The firms, for their part, are complaining of not being able to carry out their social responsibility at will.

The convention’s planned proposals for artificially reducing and eliminating tobacco growing is another issue the ITGA hopes to tackle.

The organization contended that the meeting’s delegates know little about the tobacco farming, and therefore would only end up harming the tobacco farms without having any impact on smokers or smoking habits.

“Not one smoker will quit smoking because of these proposals, and supply will not go down as some of the biggest tobacco growing countries have not ratified the FCTC,” said Antonio Abrunhosa, CEO of the ITGA.

The FCTC, a biennial event and the biggest of its kind for the tobacco industry, is scheduled to run until Saturday.

By Kim Ji-hyun  (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)