Solar curing barns, fast-growing trees and agroforestry offer a solution to the deforestation caused by tobacco production in Thailand, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Philippines and other developing countries

In this document, comprising nine separate papers, three promising solutions to the deforestation problem are outlined: solar heat for tobacco curing; the planting of fast-growing trees; and agroforestry. Five of the papers examine the use of solar barns, which would reduce the fuel costs and labor requirements of curing tobacco, as well as related deforestation problems. The barns could also be used to grow tobacco transplants for fully automatic transplanting and could be converted to greenhouses at the end of the tobacco curing season and used for hydroponic production of horticultural crops. Other papers and articles assess: two credit programs in the Philippines which required that borrowers, to qualify for a loan to grow tobacco, plant a quantity of fast-growing trees; the effects of intercropping shade trees and tobacco in the humid mountains of Puerto Rico; the extent of deforestation in Sri Lanka resulting from tobacco cultivation; and the use of fuelwood and charcoal for energy production in developing countries.