An Industrial Revolution is Overtaking Burley

Source from:  tobaccoreporter.com US, Tuesday, January 23, 2007 01/25/2007

US Burley farms are finally taking to mechanical harvesting, according to a report by Gregory A. Hall for The Courier-Journal. While the handling of other crops in the US was mechanized years ago, mechanical Burley harvesting proved more difficult to achieve, and there was limited incentive in developing such equipment because government support prices allowed this crop to be produced by hand as part of small-scale operations. But the 2004 federal tobacco buyout that ended price supports revived interest, and that interest has been boosted by labor shortages. Consequently, a Louisville company, GCH International, is now marketing a mechanical Burley harvester, three of which were in operation last season. "This is really the industrial revolution for Burley tobacco," said Jeff Androla, president of the company. Hall reported that GCH teamed up about a year ago with a company formed by University of Kentucky engineers who had been developing the harvester since the early 1980s. GCH exclusively builds and markets the machines, which sell as the Gold Standard Harvesting System for $379,000 each. Enditem