Amprotabaco: the mayor network in defense of the industry

How an entity created ten years ago in the South of Brazil became a network of politicians that govern with their backs turned to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and any law that dares to get in the way of a product which kills 160 thousand people per year in the country

The inauguration of the Philip Morris cigarette factory on an impressive 40,000 square meter site in Santa Cruz do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, was supposed to be a cause for celebration, but the politicians present at the event were worried. It was April 2013 and Telmo Kirst, then mayor of the town considered the “tobacco capital” of Brazil, and Luis Carlos Heinze, then a federal representative, took advantage of the presence of the media to send a few messages to the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa).

Months earlier, Anvisa had published a resolution banning the presence of menthol, clove and cinnamon in cigarettes. The measure angered the tobacco industry, since scent and flavor additives soften the harshness of nicotine.

Part of the reaction came, as expected, through the courts. Several entities representing the sector filed a direct unconstitutionality action with the Federal Supreme Court (STF). Not long ago, the same tactic had been used against the National Anti-smoking Law, approved by Congress in 2011. And before that, against restrictions on cigarette advertising and the well-known warnings against smoking on product packaging.

The other part of the reaction, however, was political. With a career already including two terms as a councillor for the Arena party during the time of the dictatorship, six consecutive terms as a federal representative and a turn as Civil Affairs secretary for the Rio Grande do Sul State Government in the 1990s, Telmo Kirst took advantage of his new position as mayor to act. 

On June 15 2013, exactly two months after the inauguration of the Marlboro plant, he announced the creation of Amprotabaco, the Association of Tobacco-Producing Municipalities. Five months later, on November 8, the private non-profit entity came off the drawing board.

“The industry’s political arm”

Brazil is the largest exporter and third largest tobacco producer in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Nowadays, cultivation is highly concentrated in the three states of Brazil’s Southern Region, which are responsible for over 95% of the country’s tobacco  production. According to a 2014 study carried out by the now extinct Rio Grande do Sul Economics and Statistics Foundation, 80% of all the tobacco produced in the region was processed in Santa Cruz do Sul. To this day, more than 50% of the municipality’s ICMS tax comes from the tobacco industrial complex.

Kirst was not only in the right place, but at the right time to rise to a leading role in the tobacco sector.

Since 2005, when Brazil ratified the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) – the only global health treaty that still exists, signed by 180 countries who agreed on the importance of reducing smoking – anti-smoking policies had been gaining more and more momentum. And in a virtuous cycle, this set of measures launched the country to a leading position in international debates which accompany the treaty’s implementation.

With the creation of Amprotabaco, the then mayor of Santa Cruz do Sul wanted a seat at the discussion table. “In the face of this context, I feel it is necessary to create an entity that could minimize the impact of decisions that were being made without the segment being heard or being able  to participate”, he said at the time the entity was created.

The question is – and always has been: what segment, exactly?

Telmo Kirst never tried to hide his direct connection with a specific segment: the tobacco businessmen. A statement made by Santa Cruz do Sul City Hall in 2013 declared that the idea to form the entity occurred “at a meeting attended by leaders of the tobacco production chain”.

The Interstate Tobacco Industry Union (SindiTabaco) did the honors and lent their headquarters, at the Oktoberfest Park in Santa Cruz do Sul, for the meeting. The union represents transnational companies such as Philip Morris and British American Tobacco (BAT).

The park would become the address of the new entity, which in the words of Rio Azul, PR, mayor Rodrigo Solda – president of Amprotabaco between 2020 and 2021 –, was born to become the industry’s “political arm”.

The political arm would enter the scene specifically to supplement representation for the companies, officially done by SindiTabaco, and representation for farmers, exercised by the Brazilian Tobacco Farmers’ Association (Afubra) – another entity historically aligned with tobacco corporations.

“We already had the industry union. Afubra, the producers. But there was no representation for ‘institutionality’, the view of the mayors”, explains Giovane Wickert, the Amprotabaco treasurer for two consecutive terms, between 2018 and 2021. “So we started to be seen more respectfully, with more attention.”

According to Wickert, mayors have a “broader and more unbiased view” of the tobacco production chain “because they need to take care of a triple equation: economy, social issues and health”. However, nothing in Amprotabaco’s performance over the last nine years corroborates this version. 

Financed by the industry

Until 2015, when corporate donations to candidates were still allowed in Brazilian elections, it was easier to track private support for politicians. Now, only natural persons can make donations. Even so, it is possible to ascertain that some of the politicians who have held the presidency of Amprotabaco had their campaigns financed by the tobacco industry.

Starting with Telmo Kirst, who received R$ 80,000 from Jorge Egidio Boettcher, a sector businessman, in the last election he ran for, in 2016. It was the largest donation received by him in that campaign, followed by R$ 63,000 coming from members of the Boettcher family, connected to the tobacco industry.

Alliance One, Philip Morris and China Brasil Tabacos (joint venture between China Tobacco and Alliance One) donated R$ 129,000 to Giovane Wickert in the 2014 elections, when he ran for state representative. He didn’t win.

But in 2016, when he ran for – and won – the election for mayor of Venâncio Aires, Wickert received a R$ 66,000 donation from Celso Kramer, known as the biggest tobacco grower in the Southern region.

Kramer also supported him in 2020 with R$ 2,100 in addition to another R$ 15,000 coming from two people linked to the tobacco industry – Rosalie Tavares Negrini Jones, legal representative for tobacco exporting company Delfshaven Holding Exportadora de Fumos, whose partner abroad is Tabacum Interamerican; and Carlos Eduardo Genehr, the current president of UTC Brasil Indústria e Comércio, based in Venâncio Aires.

In the 2022 election, Genehr supported him yet again with the sum of R$ 5 thousand, once more in the race for state representative. When asked by Joio about this campaign funding history, Wickert only answered with regard to Genehr’s donation. “UTC was expanding in the municipality and decided to collaborate.” When asked about the conflict of interests between defending the tobacco industry and being funded by it, he said: “That which is legal does not create embarassment: it keeps us independent.”

In the 2016 election Rodrigo Solda received R$ 6,800 from his brother Rodolfo Solda, owner of a tobacco processing company, and was elected mayor on the PSL Party ticket.

“We are now 508 mayors against anti-smoking”, says Guido Hoff, former Vera Cruz mayor and currently Amprotabaco secretary. “The municipalities need this revenue”, concludes the politician before hanging up the phone and refusing to concede further interviews to Joio.

Hoff received R$ 8,000 from his wife Laci Severo – who works at Afubra – in the 2016 campaign, in which he was elected mayor of Vera Cruz, a municipality of 27.3 thousand inhabitants in the Vale do Rio Pardo region, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In 2008, he received R$ 2,000 from his youngest son, Cássio Hoff, owner of a tobacco leaf destalking company. When questioned about the donations, Hoff did not answer.

Despite the current secretary and Hoff stating that Amprotabaco gathers together over 500 mayors, the number of tobacco-producing municipalities associated to Amprotabaco is one of the many question marks surrounding the entity.

There is no public access information on the issue. When sought by Joio, current Amprotabaco president Marcus Vinícius Pegoraro (MDB), mayor of Canguçu – currently Brazil’s largest tobacco-producing town – could not provide an answer either.

We were able to gain access to official data through the notary office where Amprotabaco records its minutes. The entity started with 30 associated municipalities (most of them from the state of Rio Grande do Sul), duly registered in the minutes of its foundation. After that, there is no further reference to the number of members in the minutes, just a list of 668 tobacco-producing municipalities in Brazil.

The question is essential, because the entity is officially financed by membership dues paid by the municipalities. Annual membership fees are calculated according to the number of inhabitants.

Municipalities of up to 25,000 inhabitants pay R$ 1,000; between 25 thousand and 50 thousand, R$ 2,000, and over 50 thousand inhabitants, R$ 3,000, as in the case of Santa Cruz do Sul, with 131,000 inhabitants. But, of course, the budget depends on how many municipalities are in fact associated. Also, how many of them are actually paying their annuities.

The Amprotabaco statute leaves the doors open to direct funding from the industry or by entities in the sector. Its sources and assets, in addition to contributions from the producing municipalities, come from “donations, contributions or legacies from natural persons or legal entities”, “aid and subsidies from public or private entities” and “other income”. Joio asked Pegoraro if the entity receives transfers from companies, but got no answer.

In the minutes registered at the notary office there are no accounting details. But the proximity to SindiTabaco and the Brazilian Tobacco Industry Association (Abifumo) is clear. In May 2015, when the mayor of São João do Triunfo (PR) at the time, Marcelo Distéfano, was president, Amprotabaco members met at a barbecue dinner party sponsored by the industry lobby at Fogo de Chão Steakhouse, in Brasília. At the time, mayors associated to Amprotabaco were in the Brazilian capital to join the March of the Mayors, which called for the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, approved in August of the same year by the House of Representatives.

Both entities have been present at most of the entity’s mayors’ meetings throughout its nine years in operation. Perhaps the most blatant piece of evidence of this close relationship is the fact that the “Casa do SindiTabaco” (“House of SindiTabaco”), an event venue for the companies’ union, is listed as the address stated on the Amprotabaco CNPJ [General Taxpayers’ Registry Number], according to the minutes: Rua Galvão da Costa nº 755, in the park that hosts the German festivities for which the tobacco municipality is also known.

In an interview granted to Joio, president Marcus Vinícius Pegoraro said that the headquarters were lent by Santa Cruz do Sul City Hall and had requested that the venue be returned, thus leaving the entity without a head office. We asked SindiTabaco about whether number 755 belonged to the union or not, but got no answer.

The fact is that politicians from only 30 municipalities have taken turns in managing Amprotabaco since its creation ten years ago.

_
“We are now 508 mayors against anti-smoking”

In many other ways, Amprotabaco is an unknown factor. It has no official website– just a Facebook profile which hasn’t been updated since 2020. There is also no information as to whether the city halls assign workers to work in the private entity.

In the minutes of the organization to which Joio had access, one name stands out: Régis de Oliveira Júnior. Oliveira, a journalist, became Telmo Kirst’s right – hand man, going from intern to municipal Health secretary. In 2017, when he was Santa Cruz do Sul Communication Secretary, he also took on the role of Amprotabaco executive secretary (position currently held by Guido Hoff). In other words, Oliveira, affiliated to the PSD Party, simultaneously held two offices of trust at the age of 23.

The role of secretary is a key position with regard to an entity’s operations, which also has an administrative advisor and a legal advisor, responsible, among other duties, for formulating draft laws and decrees in the interest of tobacco-producing municipalities. These would be the only paid Amprotabaco employees. According to the statute, the work done by associated mayors is unpaid.

After the publication of this story, Amprotabaco issued a statement in which the current president Marcus Vinícius Pegoraro contradicts himself. To Joio, Pegoraro had confirmed that the executive secretary position was paid. However, in the statement, he states that Régis was never paid for the services provided to the entity.

Joio questioned one of the current vice-presidents of the entity, Santa Cruz mayor Helena Hermany (Progressistas Party), about the headquarters, the number of members, employees and the entity’s plans, but got no response.

Hermany’s story, however, points towards a suspicion that Amprotabaco may be an exclusive little club. Since taking office at the entity in 2022, Hermany has not been called to attend any meetings or gatherings at the entity, said a source who wished to remain anonymous. The reason seems to be a feud from the past: Hermany was Telmo Kirst’s vice president. In December 2019, Kirst kicked her out of the cabinet, creating an institutional crisis at City Hall that led him to switch parties, moving to PSD.

Against diversification

Despite so many questions in the air, Amprotabaco has always had international aspirations. Every two years the signatory countries to the Framework Convention get together at an event called the Conference of the Parties, or simply COP. Multiple sources and documents confirm that the creation of the entity in 2013 is directly connected to the sixth edition of the event, which took place in 2014.

The treaty has a specific article, number 17, establishing that signatory countries should promote economically viable alternatives for workers in the sector, especially for farmers whose livelihood is exclusively based on tobacco.

There are around 130,000 tobacco-growing families in the Southern region of Brazil. However, instead of seeking and strengthening economic alternatives directed at them, Amprotabaco has dedicated its efforts towards fighting the Framework Convention.

“After the Framework Convention global restrictions on tobacco production and commercialization increased, jeopardizing the economic situation for thousands of small rural properties in Southern Brazil.” The statement, made by Kirst in 2013, summarizes at the same time the discomfort that originated Amprotabaco and the discourse which would set the tone for the entity’s actions over the last decade.

“There was a distortion of the Framework Convention by the entities connected to tobacco. They demonize it and cause confusion among producers by saying that it intends to put an end to tobacco production”, says Workers Party (PT) state representative Zé Nunes, whose political base is in São Lourenço do Sul, the fourth largest tobacco producer in Rio Grande do Sul state. “It says exactly the opposite in the text of the Convention: that producers cannot be penalized.”

“We never said to totally eliminate tobacco farming. It is the families who should be able to gradually make the decision about increasing the area dedicated to other crops, and then decide whether to abandon tobacco farming or not. It is necessary to provide support for families to take this step, if they wish. The role of the State is to offer other opportunities based on a scenario in which the inequalities, risks and weaknesses that are so common in the tobacco production chain are observed”, explains Adriana Gregolin, who was active between 2006 and 2013 in the National Program for Diversification in Tobacco-Growing Areas (Programa Nacional de Diversificação em Áreas Cultivadas com Tabaco – PNDACT) – created at the federal level in 2005, the same year Brazil ratified the Convention.

Administrator Jesus Rodrigues was at Afubra when the Framework Convention was ratified and became more directly involved with the creation of alternatives to tobacco-growing. He accompanied projects such as sunflower for biodiesel production and the blueberry project. Despite results he considers “highly satisfactory”, none of them went forward.

“Sunflower had everything to become a new production matrix, with the production of biodiesel for farmers and bran to feed the animals; the farmer uses the entire production, without waste. With pre-salt, however, this market became empty, and provided yet another reason for people to say ‘oh, it’s not as good as tobacco’”, he recalls. “And so it was, for everything. That’s when I realized that nothing would work out because there’s so much pressure for the alternatives to tobacco not to work out. I felt like a complete fool”, he rants.

The administrator reports having noticed a timid celebration from the mayors when the alternative project to tobacco wasn’t successful. “They are afraid, because after two years producing food, farmers don’t want to even hear about planting tobacco anymore. They are quick to adapt if they have the support of consistent public policies”, Rodrigues evaluates. To him, entities like Amprotabaco have their own agenda, not necessarily aligned with the tobacco growers’ best interests.

Amprotabaco’s lack of support for diversification, something that depends a lot on the initiative by municipal governments in order to get off the ground, is another indicator of its profile leaning more towards the tobacco industry. There is no mention of this theme in journalistic articles or in the minutes analyzed by Joio.

Since the frustration at COP 8, the diversification actions supported by the federal government have been stagnant. Under the Jair Bolsonaro government, they were practically extinguished. The final blow was given with the appointment of Fernando Schwanke to the Office of Family Agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture. Formerly the mayor of Rio Pardo (RS), he was referred by federal representative Alceu Moreira (MDB) and had enthusiastic support from the tobacco industry. In the Amprotabaco minutes, Schwanke appears as president of the electoral committee that created the minutes of the constitution.

Schwanke took office saying he would defend tobacco. In two years as head of the office, Schwanke was able to partially reactivate public financing for the purchase of equipment by tobacco growers through Pronamp, the medium producer support program, but was unsuccessful in reopening access to credit from Pronaf, the program for financing family agriculture, which removed tobacco growers from the list of beneficiaries. His greatest achievement, however, was to reduce the National Program for the Diversification of Tobacco-Growing Areas to almost nothing.

In a request made by Joio via the Access to Information Law, Mapa informed that R$ 9.8 million were allocated in 2019, R$ 5.8 million in 2020 and just R$ 1.7 million in the last two years of the program. “Fernando Schwanke came here to end everything that had been done”, said former Afubra associate Jesus Rodrigues. “You don’t even hear about the program anymore”.

Another position that shows how the entity acts more in defense of tobacco corporations than actual producers, the weakest link in the chain, is the speech given by its founder Telmo Kirst, in 2015. At an Amprotabaco meeting in May 2015, attended by Afubra representatives, Telmo Kirst made it clear that the entity would remain neutral with regard to the price of tobacco, defined by the industry.

“Oil and water”

The entry of Brazilian mayors into the pro-tobacco chess game made the task even more difficult –which was already difficult enough – for the National Committee for the Implementation of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (Conicq), presided by the Ministry of Health. One of the articles of the Convention says that it is the duty of the States to protect health policies from the interests of the industry.

Tânia Cavalcante was Conicq executive secretary for 19 years. Right from the start, she realized that Amprotabaco was a spokesperson for industry interests. “The mayors of the tobacco-producing region repeat industry mantras to counteract the actions to reduce smoking”, she says. Among them we hear that “there is no crop more profitable than tobacco in small property holdings” and that “tobacco does not make the farmer sicker and is environmentally sustainable”.

The first hearing in which Amprotabaco took part at the Federal House of Representatives shows that Cavalcante was not wrong. The reunion took place on May 28 2014, six months after the entity was created. The meeting lasted seven hours and gathered representatives from both sides of the table. The 151-page document that resulted from the debates makes it evident that Amprotabaco’s arguments were the same as the pro-tobacco entities – and that a new player in the lobby body of this industry was emerging.

Amprotabaco quickly gained a seat in the Sectorial Chamber of the Tobacco Production Chain, a collegiate created in 2003 within the Ministry of Agriculture whose members can be confused with representatives from industry entities or that orbit around it. Afubra secretary Romeu Schneider has held the position of president of the sectorial chamber for 15 years. The technical advisor is Carlos Galant, who happens to be the president of Abifumo – an entity directly linked to the companies, which works together with SindiTabaco (who also has a seat on the collegiate).   

Many of these entities also wanted a seat on Conicq. The committee had only federal government agencies as members. As the spokesperson for the mayors, Amprotabaco denoted a perfect ambivalence to try and break through this blockade.

“Conicq has an obligation to hear the stakeholders, whether from the industry, workers and civil society. But if we opened the door to civil society, we would be opening the doors to the participation of these organizations which are from civil society, but which are at the service of the tobacco industry”, the doctor says. “So this was a very difficult process: to allow the participation of organized civil society that defends the interests of the Framework Convention without allowing for an influence that distorts the principles of the treaty.”

Discussions about alternatives to diversify tobacco-growing stalled in 2014, and later in 2017. On the eve of COP 8, Tânia Cavalcante decided to appeal to Amprotabaco and invited Giovane Wickert, who besides being the entity’s treasurer was the mayor of Venâncio Aires, the main tobacco-producing municipality at the time, to visit the National Cancer Institute (Inca) in Rio de Janeiro, Conicq headquarters.

“Giovane was a very articulate person. He attended a meeting at Inca before the conference. Our concern, once again, was to dismantle the argument that all we want is to end tobacco production – which is not true. We wanted to show that we needed the help of the mayors to demand actions from the federal government that were up to this challenge. We proposed working together on this”, he says. “We felt that he was moved and asked him to act as an intermediary with his colleagues at Amprotabaco.”

After the meeting, however, “the mask came off”, the doctor recalls. “Wickert sought out a member of the Conicq team asking not to mention that he had been at Inca, so as not to think he had been ‘converted.’”

Wicket confirmed the episode to Joio and claimed to have been under pressure from Telmo Kirst. “He sent Dalvi Soares, who was the executive secretary at the time [and mayor of Encruzilhada do Sul], with me to see if I wouldn’t “hand over the saddle”. He was worried. When we returned, he asked: ‘how did Giovane behave?’”

Moral of the story? The viewpoint of the mayors is not as “broader and unbiased” as Wickert implied in our first conversation. “You know, it’s like an “oil and water” kind of atmosphere. You may even come close to a dialog, but it doesn’t move forward. It’s still like that today”, he acknowledges.

_
“it’s like an “oil and water” kind of atmosphere”

It was also at COP 8 that Amprotabaco attempted its boldest maneuver so far: to form an international association of tobacco-producing municipalities. The objective was to get hold of an “observer” credential in order to gain greater access to the conference lectures and sessions.

“The chain has no voice at the COPs, it’s the Ministry of Health who takes care of everything and no space is given. But we realize that a few international entities had space available, and for that reason we sought this internationalization”, explains Wickert. The attempt did not move forward. “It was left on a slow-burning stove”, he admits. But the idea remains in the entity’s plans.

In a video recorded at COP 8, Wickert, together with an Abifumo representative, said that Amprotabaco made its presence felt before being expelled from the events where industry interference was banned. “We came here to seek a balance between the points brought forward by the health and anti-smoking sectors and the question of productivity. We could clearly see that Brazil is a strong leader in the implementation of the FCTC, and that creates more concern for us.”

At COP 8, the entity was accompanied by a journalist from Zero Hora newspaper who afforded visibility to the internationalization plan. The article was limited to reporting the mayors’ outrage at the lack of access to the debates; this was purposefully forbidden in order to avoid interference by the global health treaty’s tobacco industry. Once again Amprotabaco took the side of SindiTabaco and Afubra.

Contradictory defense

In interviews given by mayors linked to Amprotabaco, there is never any mention of smoking-related deaths in Brazil, estimated at 160 thousand every year. The use of pesticides and the poisoning of tobacco growers by these products are also not mentioned. As the representatives elected by popular vote gathered within an association which has tobacco farming as a common factor, it was expected that these issues would at least be mentioned. But on the list of Amprotabaco concerns there is no room for criticism of the tobacco industry.

Nor for diverging positions on key issues for producer-municipalities. It is the case of the electronic smoking devices (ESDs) – whose advertising relies on the hypothesis, as yet fragile, of being less harmful to health. Only heated tobacco products depend on the plant. Electronic cigarettes, or vapes, are based on liquids containing nicotine, which can be synthetic.

Compared to conventional cigarettes, the new products do not yet represent a large share of the tobacco industry’s revenue, and it may remain this way for a long time. But companies have been investing heavily to introduce e-cigarettes worldwide and have been targeting teenagers in order to win over a new generation of users.

If there really is another big change in the consumer profile in the next few decades, tobacco growing in the South may go into a crisis. But this doesn’t seem to concern Amprotabaco, who defends exactly the same position as the companies.

In an interview before Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat in the presidential elections, Marcus Vinícius Pegoraro pointed out that Amprotabaco’s priority is to press for the unbanning of electronic cigarettes. The product was banned by Anvisa in 2009, who reiterated their position in 2022.

“For Amprotabaco to defend electronic cigarettes is a very serious issue. There is far less tobacco in e-cigarettes. They are just repeating what the industry wants without even knowing exactly the impact this would have on production”, criticizes Workers’ Party (PT) congressman Zé Nunes, for whom the entity does not defend agendas that will “really make a difference to producer autonomy”.

He gives the example of a bill he authored, presented to the Rio Grande do Sul Legislative Assembly in the very distant year of 2015 – which was only approved at the end of last year. The bill provides for the classification of tobacco leaves to be done on the farm, providing more transparency for the stage prior to pricing.

The industry currently evaluates the quality of the tobacco inside the factories without the farmer knowing which criteria were evaluated. This analysis is the basis for the price, also stipulated by the industry. “The grower often disagrees with the price, but can’t do anything. Either he accepts or loses everything”, explains Zé Nunes.

Alberto Heck, a Workers Party (PT) Councillor in Santa Cruz do Sul for four terms, is also quite impressed with the position taken by the mayors. “It’s irresponsible of the administrators not to think and plan a future with less tobacco production, maybe without the factories. The industries will leave in the blink of an eye if that’s what they decide”, says Heck, also a teacher in the municipal school system for over 30 years.

“The question for Amprotabaco: are the mayors pushing for diversification or to give autonomy to the producer? It seems to be nothing”, questions Heck. “Tobacco producers are totally dependent on the industry. They don’t even need to leave the property: they receive assistance, the seeds, pesticides, financing from the tobacco company, which then purchases whatever it wants, determining the quality and the price. It’s no wonder that tobacco has been called the slave production monoculture.”