With His Harvest Complete, an ET Tobacco Farmer Must Bide Time for Crop’s Results

By LARISA BRASS, brass@knews.com

It’s all over but the waiting.

Last week, Greeneville tobacco farmer Alan Sasscer finished harvesting the last of 16 acres of burley he planted in the spring.

In an uncertain year following a federal buyout of the nation’s tobacco farmers the growing season turned out fairly well for East Tennessee farmers, who escaped the drenching summer rains of Western North Carolina and the withering drought of their neighbors across the Kentucky line.

"I think most people around here had a pretty good growing season," Sasscer said. "Now we’ve got to wear ourselves to death (worrying) with how this is going to cure."

For the next two months the crop will hang in the barn to dry, or cure, a process that’s as important as growing the leaf itself.

"Either too hot and dry or too cold and damp is not good," said Paul Denton, tobacco specialist with the University of Tennessee’s extension program.

So far, the weather hasn’t cooperated, offering little but high temperatures and dry conditions in recent weeks.

Come Thanksgiving, Sasscer will begin baling his burley and hauling it to market, a process that will continue into February. He’ll learn whether this year’s crop was successful at market.

No longer will a federal price support system back up what cigarette manufacturers pay farmers for their crop. Sasscer has a contract with R.J. Reynolds for $1.50 per pound of tobacco.

But that price can vary 50-60 cents on sale day, he said, based on the grade an inspector gives the various parts of the plant. He and other farmers worry buyers will be more likely to downgrade their crops without the federal price support program in place to guarantee a market for their burley.

That uncertainty has led a lot of local farmers to get out of the burley business.

Production is expected to drop nearly 30 percent this year in Tennessee and other burley-producing states, according to government data. Burley production for the year in Tennessee is forecast at 32.3 million pounds, down 30 percent from a year ago.

But Denton said he expects the local harvest to be better than predicted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While the USDA forecast a crop of about 1,900 pounds an acre in Tennessee, Denton believes a more accurate average would be 2,000 to 2,200 pounds an acre.

On the financial side, farmers are getting an unexpected bonus. In August, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that growers were due a last round of Phase II tobacco settlement payments, set up as part of a nationwide tobacco settlement in 1999.

Cigarette companies had argued that the federal tobacco buyout, which they help pay for, absolved them from making a final payment to growers in 2004.

While it’s nice to get the money, Sasscer said the extra cash won’t figure in his decision whether to grow tobacco in 2006.

He’s already received his 2005 federal buyout checks, some of which he used to retire debt and some he’s hanging onto for now. He chose to take part of the buyout as a lump sum, too, which he will use to pay off more loans.

But, he said, "You can’t take this money and farm. If you’ve got to take this money to stay in business, that means you’re not making it off your tobacco crop."

Tobacco’s uncertain future hasn’t kept new growers from getting into the business, said Denton. Local farmers face competition from upstart tobacco growers in Virginia as well as Amish communities of Pennsylvania and Maryland that are taking advantage of the newly free marketplace.

"They have potential if their curing season will allow them to produce the quality tobacco companies want," Denton said, adding that producers may also find the labor-intensive nature of the crop to their disliking.

"If the Piedmont growers are happy with what they’ve done, in the next two years we could see a big impact," he said.

So how does Sasscer feel about his future in the tobacco business?

"If you talked to me day before yesterday, I’d say, ‘Hell no, I’m not raising no more tobacco,’" Sasscer said in a telephone interview earlier this week.

"Today I’m better," he said. "I’m definitely undecided on next year."

Business writer Larisa Brass may be reached at 865-342-6318. The Associated Press contributed to this story.