Burley Joins Pitt Tobacco Lineup

Source from:  By Amanda Karr The Daily Reflector Monday, August 21, 2006 08/23/2006

Tobacco production in Pitt County is up over last year, and for the first year a new type of the crop is being grown locally. Flue-cured is the tobacco traditionally grown in the county, Pitt County Cooperative Extension Director Mitch Smith said. It remains a local staple, with the acreage planted increasing 15 percent over last year. A new type of tobacco has also joined local soil. Burley is a type of tobacco that is air cured in contrast to flue-cured tobacco, which is dried in a closed, heated building. About 85 acres was planted this year in Pitt County, compared to the 8,372 acres of flue-cured tobacco. "There's more growers of burley tobacco quitting the business than flue-cured, and at a faster pace," Smith said. "Manufacturers are not able to get (the) supply of burley that they really want, so that drives the price up, and I think makes it more appealing to growers." Some growers of flue-cured tobacco have also dropped out of the market. Pitt County has seen an approximately 15 percent decline in tobacco farmers, Smith said. Taking up the slack, though, are the remaining farmers, who planted more flue-cured tobacco this year than last year. In 2005, the year the federal tobacco buyout took effect, 7,233 acres of tobacco was grown in Pitt County. That increased 15 percent this year, to 8,372 acres. The jump puts the county back on par with the amount grown in 2004 — the year before the tobacco buyout, which did away with quotas, allowing farmers to grow as much tobacco as they want. "It's creeping back up and likely will jump again next year. It's optimism. Of course energy prices will slow it, but manufacturers continually look to the U.S. for leaf," Smith said. In Wilson County, farmers are growing 47 percent more tobacco than they did in 2004, bringing the county's acreage up to 8,300 acres, according to The Wilson Daily Times. Brazil and Zimbabwe are among large tobacco exporters across the globe. Manufacturers typically don't like to buy all their leaf from one place, because a weather crisis in one region could damage an entire crop supply that way, Smith said. "There is company demand for U.S. leaf and an interest in moving some of their purchasing away from Brazil back to the U.S.," Smith said. "The increased acreage reflects company demand and an increased demand for our leaf." Even with the increase, tobacco acreage levels are half what they were in 1999. The capacity is still there though, Smith said, and could steadily increase back to that level as growers in other areas drop out of the market. Burley production could also expand as farmers learn about the new crop, Smith said. This year, about 2,500 acres of burley tobacco is being grown in North Carolina, with most of the planting occurring in the Piedmont. About 800 acres is being produced east of I-95, according to David Smith, a N.C. State University crop science specialist. The Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at N.C. State is working to get information out to farmers about harvesting the crop. The department recently acquired a harvester designed in France and is demonstrating it across the state. It came to Pitt County last week, and about 20 tobacco producers, university researchers, agriculture-extension workers and farm lenders watched the machine work. "The real appealing point of growing burley is, you don't use (liquid propane) gas, so you would eliminate fuel costs," Smith said. "It costs $1,000 less per acre to grow, but half the cost is in labor, so our research says minimizing the need for labor will allow it to be more of an option for a grower to consider." Enditem