Tobacco Crop Numbers up

Source from:  BY JOHN REID BLACKWELL TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jul 6, 2006  07/07/2006

Acreage forecast to grow 29 percent; planting likely to increase by 5,000 acres Virginia farmers are growing more tobacco this year than in 2005, when the mainstay crop hit a record low in production. The state's tobacco acreage is forecast to grow about 29 percent this year, according to an estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The harvest could be from 22,180 acres, up more than 5,000 acres from 2005, the agency reported based on a survey of farmers in June. After years of losing buyers to foreign markets, Virginia farmers saw tobacco acreage drop to a record low last year, and production remains well below the more than 50,000 acres grown a decade ago. This year's increase is probably the result of two factors, sources said yesterday. Much of the growth is from farmers having less tobacco left over from previous seasons. Of the 42.5 million pounds of Virginia tobacco sold in 2005, about 20 percent was harvested the year before, said Stan Duffer, regional market manager for the Virginia Department of Agriculture. Because farmers have less carryover leaf to sell this year, they planted more acres. The production increase also might signal an upswing in demand for U.S.-grown tobacco. In 2004, Congress approved a $10 billion buyout of the federal tobacco-quota program established during the Great Depression to stabilize supply and prices. The buyout eliminated government-mandated price supports and the cost of leasing quota, resulting in a drop in prices. "It obviously reflects the more competitive position of U.S. tobacco on the world market," said Don Anderson, a Halifax County farmer and executive director of the Virginia Tobacco Growers' Association. "The buyout is having the intended results: to allow our tobacco to be sold more widely on the world market, and to be used more widely by the domestic [cigarette] companies to replace imported tobacco." According to the federal government, essentially all of the growth is in flue-cured tobacco, the most common variety grown in Southside Virginia and the key type in cigarettes. The flue-cured harvest is expected to be about 19,000 acres this year, up from about 14,000 acres in 2005. Production of dark-fired tobacco will grow about 40 acres to 380 acres. Burley tobacco, a variety historically grown in Southwest Virginia, will be unchanged from last year at 2,800 acres, the USDA said. But several observers said they believe burley acreage is growing, too, as some farmers in Southside Virginia raise that variety in addition to flue-cured. More precise figures on tobacco acreage are expected as the growing season progresses. "It is making a comeback, and I am glad to see it," said Nelson Link, farm programs chief for the Virginia Farm Service Agency. "When you have a buyout, you just have to let the market settle and the dust clear. The companies have to decide what they will pay, and the producers have to decide what they will accept." Tobacco brought $113 million in cash receipts for Virginia farmers in 2004 but was surpassed as the state's top cash crop by soybeans. Enditem