John Oncken: Philip Morris Helps Revive State Tobacco

Source from:  madison.com By John Oncken  01/19/2007

The question is: Can southern Wisconsin tobacco farmers cast aside 150 years of tobacco-raising technology and know how and learn a new way of raising tobacco? The final results are still to come in. But with a few weeks to go, it's so far so good. Regular readers of this column know I was raised on a family farm near Stoughton where we grew corn, oats and hay, raised registered Spotted Poland hogs and milked cows. We were also one of a very few Wisconsin farmers who grew tobacco, thus making us part of a rather elite class of farmers located in two areas of Wisconsin: Rock and Dane counties and Vernon County. Not many Wisconsinites knew or know that tobacco was raised in the dairy state. And the mostly Norwegian heritage farmers who raised it didn't do a lot of bragging. After all, Wisconsin tobacco was not a very romantic crop - it was used for chewing and spitting - as compared to the decades of cool advertising showing cowboys on horses and sleek women in sophisticated settings smoking cigarettes. Plus, there was always an "inside" saying that to be a good tobacco grower "a strong back and weak mind" were strong attributes. For most of the century and a half when tobacco thrived as a crop among the very few who raised it, the final product was sold at a low price by the growers. A low price, yes - but for a price that was big enough to buy farms, tractors, refrigerators and kitchen tools that would have never been bought without tobacco. The acres of tobacco gradually declined over the years. Most farmers or farmers sons didn't want to spend all summer bent over at the waist. The tobacco growers' offspring found out about college and jobs that required less labor in air conditioned offices rather than working under the hot sun. A couple of years ago the grower-supported tobacco program ended and many farmers packed up their tobacco axes and spears, parked their planters in the shed and began using their strip houses to store extra tools, old clothes and whatever. Besides, hiring farm labor was getting to be a major challenge. Who wants to work so hard? Very few. The acres of tobacco raised went to near zero in Vernon County last year with southern Wisconsin acreage well under 1,000 acres. All of that was raised under contracts offered by the international company, Swedish Match, based in Stoughton. But a strange thing happened a year ago. The big cigarette maker, Philip Morris, approached some of the few remaining Wisconsin tobacco growers and proposed they raise some Burley tobacco. It seems that the company was looking to raise tobacco outside its historic southern base of Virginia and Kentucky. All told, 28 farmers raised about 50 acres total of Burley tobacco in southern Wisconsin. No one raised much - maybe an acre or two. The challenges to the Wisconsin growers were many, with the culture of the crop the big difference. Burley tobacco is maybe a foot taller than the Wisconsin varieties. This changed the traditional raising system at every step: You must reach up rather than down to top the plant; cutting the big plant slowed the process down; fewer plants were put on a lath, meaning more lathes needed and many sheds were too small to hang the long plants. Maybe the biggest change of all was in the final step - stripping the leaves from the plants, a process now in progress. The Wisconsin system involved sticking the lath into a holder at chest level and removing the leaves from top to bottom, a process that a good stripper can do in but a few moments. In fact, my brother and I often raced each other to see who could finish faster with more leaves. Burley tobacco stripping is totally different. The stems are removed from the lath and each stalk and leaf is handled individually. Furthermore, each leaf is put into one of four grades. I couldn't envision the process, so traveled to the 109-year-old strip house on the Lund farm near Deerfield where the two acres of Burley raised by brothers James, Dennis, Dale and Ron Lund was being stripped. It was a shocker to see strippers Travis Abel and Scott Peterson, both locally-raised farm boys who now work as masons, removing one leaf at a time from the long tobacco stalks and placing the leaves in four piles on a big table. James and Dennis Lund were removing stems from lathes, putting leaves into the tobacco presses (four of them), stripping and talking to me. James Lund explained there are four classes: tips, leaf, lugs/cutters and flyings going from top to bottom of the plant. To my surprise, the top and bottom leaves, rather than the big golden middle leaves, are the most valuable. "It sure slows us down," Lund said, as the rest of the crew nods in agreement. "Philip Morris has helped us a lot," Lund continued. "They came up in early December to show us how to strip and Dale Smith, a company consultant, came last Saturday to see how things were going. He said we were doing an excellent job." Oh, and the bundles that are formed after the hands of leaves are pressed looked so strange and very naked - they were not wrapped in paper as has been the tradition in Wisconsin from the beginning. The 2007 Burley tobacco trial ends late this month when the bundles are hauled to Platteville where Philip Morris will grade, pick up and pay for the crop. Will Burley tobacco be a crop in our state's future? Who knows? Certainly not the growers, although the company seems to like the ambition and ability of Wisconsin farmers who grew the crop this year. My guess is that the traditional tobacco farmers want the trial to succeed. But, I'd guess there aren't many new growers wanting to get in. The Wisconsin tobacco crop was devastated this summer by rust and mold. The Lunds harvested only 15 of the 52 acres they planted. "We lost 65 percent of our contracted production," said Greg Layton, manager of Swedish Match. "It puts us in a bind so we are raising the price 15 cents per pound to $1.75 next year with a 10 percent increase." So, what is the future of the Wisconsin tobacco crop in years to come? As always, it depends on farmer's ambitions, the weather and supply and demand. There's another big if: Philip Morris. If PM likes Wisconsin Burley, tobacco could rise again. That would indeed make the devoted tobacco farmer happy. Enditem