MOVES led by the World Health Organisation for a global convention to cut smoking will increase poverty and strangle the economy, Malawian farm leaders were quoted as saying on Wednesday. They said that about 80% of the country’s 10 million people live in rural areas and are dependent on tobacco production. WHO is leading a campaign for a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control by 2003 to deal with health problems linked to smoking. “Malawi receives more than 70% of its hard currency earnings from tobacco,” said Gilbert Thyangathyanga, a Tobacco Association of Malawi (TAMA) official and chief executive for Africa at the International Tobacco Growers’ Association. “Even slightly better-endowed countries such as Zimbabwe now expect 35-40% of their hard currency earnings from tobacco,” he said. According to government statistics tobacco employs an estimated 1,6-million people. The United Nations, European Union and Price waterhouse Coopers researchers had investigated the possibility of diversifying Malawi’s economy to sugar, tea and coffee, but none has the potential to replace tobacco in the next 10 years. – IRIN