MEXICO CITY - For the world's anti-tobacco movement, a small town in southern Brazil has become a symbol of a silent tragedy unfolding among communities which have turned to tobacco farming for a livelihood.

What has contributed to such symbolism is the ''very high rate of suicides'' in that town, Venancio Aires, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, says Angela Cordiero, an agronomist and a Brazilian activist in the movement. While the national average in Brazil has been three suicides per 100,000 people, in Venancio Aires it is seven times higher - 21 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

For Cordeiro, the suicide rate in Venancio Aires can be traced to the ''dangerous pesticides'' used by the tobacco farmers in that area.

''The organophosphate pesticides that farmers use in the tobacco fields have chemicals known to affect the neurological system. They often get depressed after exposure and try to kill themselves,'' she adds.

This diagnosis, in fact, has been confirmed by researchers at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Studies have revealed that a majority of those who committed suicide in Venancio Aires were farmers, and they had killed themselves during the months when organophosphate pesticides were used extensively in the tobacco fields.

For the tobacco-control movement, such a disturbing phenomenon is only one of a litany of problems that has been plaguing those who work on tobacco farms. In this country, for instance, the plight of the Huichol Indians working in the tobacco fields in the western state of Nayarit has become a cause for concern.

Says Patricia Diaz-Romo, a Mexican anti-tobacco activist, the most glaring as been the impact of pesticide poisoning on the pregnant Huichol Indian women who have worked in the fields.

''They give birth to deformed children, some who have no genitalia and die within days of being born, some who have no limbs,'' she reveals.

And during the 11th World Conference on Health Or Tobacco held early this month in Chicago, activists drew attention to such realities in their effort to expose the health hazards faced by tobacco farmers.

According to Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a physician at the Boston University School of Medicine, the poisoned lives of tobacco farmers has received little attention from governments, due to ''very few knowing the dangers of harvesting tobacco.''

''When used properly, some of the pesticides can cause respiratory irritation, pose a danger to pregnant women and contribute to cancer over many years,'' observes Sharfstein, who has researched the health implications and national regulation of tobacco pesticides.

But, he remarks, ''when used indiscriminately or improperly, some of the pesticides can cause nerve damage, troubled breathing and death.''

For the World Health Organisation (WHO), the scarcity of attention to the health hazards of tobacco farmers reflects the larger global picture regards occupational health problems. A WHO study points out, for instance, that 'the evaluation of the global burden of occupational diseases and injuries is difficult. Reliable information for most developing countries is scarce.

'' This stems from the ''serious limitations in the diagnosis of occupational illnesses and in the reporting systems.

'' Referring to Latin America, for example, the WHO reveals that only between one and four percent of all occupational diseases are reported.

Says Cordeiro, there is a desperate need to change this culture of silence. ''A surveillance system has to be established in Latin America, Africa and Asia to monitor the impact of pesticides on tobacco farmers and their families.

'' Tobacco is grown in more than 100 countries, including about 80 developing nations, states a 512-page report released during this month's conference. And in recent decades, it adds, the growth in world tobacco production has multiplied significantly in low- and middle-income countries.

''Between 1975 and 1998, production in developed countries fell by 31 percent, while production in developing countries rose by 128 percent,'' note the authors of the report, 'Tobacco Control in Developing Countries,' a joint publication of the WHO and the World Bank.

The reason for that stems from the type of crop tobacco is. It is labour intensive and has the ''ability to generate dependable cash flows for poor small farmers''. On most tobacco farms, the demand is high for seasonal labour for ''transplanting young plants from seedbeds or greenhouses to fields, and for removing tops when plants begin to flower.

'' According to tobacco-industry estimates, this has meant some 33 million people being employed worldwide in tobacco fields.

In a country like China, for instance, which tops the current list of tobacco-growing countries, some 15 million people work on tobacco fields. For the London-based Panos Institute, however, such high employment figures have come with a price, given that ''tobacco needs heavy applications of pesticides.'' And it accuses the tobacco industry of ''rarely publishing'' the figures stemming from pesticide poisoning, both of the farmers working in the fields and of nearby communities.

According to the United States-based Pesticide Action Network (PAN), the manner in which tobacco companies ''exert a great deal of control over the farmers'' cannot be ignored. In Brazil, for instance, ''the company determines the size of the area to be sown and the amount of fertilisers and pesticides to be used,'' it declares. And to ensure that farmers are following company guidelines, such as the required use of pesticides and fertilisers, ''company inspectors visit the fields regularly.

'' Studies done by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) state that ''occupational exposure is probably one of the most important to tobacco farmers, since they and their families are exposed constantly to a large amount and variety of pesticides.

'' During the tobacco crop cycle, furthermore, PAHO estimates that anywhere between 30 to 60 kilograms of pesticides per hectare are used. In addition, there is exposure during ''contact with raw materials, storage and transportation'' of the pesticides.

What is more, reveals the PAHO, not only adults face such hazardous situations during work, but children, too. In Brazil, for instance, there are over 1 million children working on tobacco farms ''who are exposed to huge mounts of pesticides.'' Unfortunately, admits the PAHO, ''few health professionals are prepared to draw a causal nexus between symptoms of acute or chronic intoxication and pesticide exposure."

'For Sharfstein, that has led to troubling consequences, since the tobacco farmers need to have ''regular access to doctors and nurses to address their) health problems - both by means of treatment and prevention - that result from the work on tobacco farms.''

And for Diaz-Romo and Cordeiro, the need to secure such medical care and attention for the tobacco farmers has become a priority, requiring greater pressure from the anti-tobacco movement to expose the health hazards of tobacco cultivation.

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More information available at: http://www.panna.org/panna
Pesticide Action Network