Hated Tobacco Option Now Desired

Source from:  stthomastimesjournal.com Saturday January 05, 2008 By Sun Media 01/07/2008

Growers ask for direct sales A handful of years ago, Ontario's tobacco farmers met en masse in their Tillsonburg warehouse to discuss a proposal that would revolutionize their industry. They were asked to abandon the safety of collective bargaining provided by their marketing board -- which gave them set prices and crop sizes -- and, instead, sell their crops directly to cigarette manufacturers. It was soundly, and angrily, shot down in a lengthy meeting. It was clear then it was an option they would never, ever embrace. Today, their industry ravaged by cheaper imports, growers are now asking through their board for "contract buying" to be brought in. Anger and an absolute refusal to give up the quota system have been replaced by reality as farmers ponder a future in a global market where the cheapest-priced commodities win. Since that noisy meeting in Tillsonburg, the amount of tobacco grown in Ontario's fields has shrunk by more than three-quarters. "If we don't change, we will be done," says Doug Morrison of Windham Centre, who at one time planted 270 acres a year. "Business has been going so downhill, this could turn it around." The Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board is in talks with the federal and provincial governments and cigarette companies on changing over to a contract system. Details of what that will look like are under wraps as negotiations continue. What could emerge has farmers both hopeful and concerned. Will they have some type of organization to represent them? Will the quota they paid big money for, and gives them the legal right to grow a percentage of the annual crop, be worthless? Board chairman Tom McElhone has said the new system is being talked about in the same breath as another package of government buyouts of tobacco quota. Quota, the theory goes, is also an expense and getting rid of it will make growing less costly and allow farmers to accept lower prices. "If they go to contracts, they'll have a lot more lawsuits on their hands," warns Vanessa-area grower Paul Donohue, referring to legal action launched last month by three farmers unhappy with how the board has handled the industry's decline. "It's kind of like my pension." But contract buying is "the way we gotta go," Donohue, 68, acknowledges. "It's in the (United) States." There are other big changes, however, that also must happen, says Larry Squires, a Port Rowan-area farmer. The "clean" but costly system of growing in southern Ontario, in which the crop is "pampered" and chemicals are avoided, will have to be abandoned, Squires warns. "We can't grow the tobacco we do for the price they want," says Squires, who started growing in 1970. "They have to let us grow cheaper." Squires says he's not in favour of a contract system. "I don't think it's going to be a good situation, but what are you going to do?" Morrison, a third-generation tobacco farmer, says he believes what will emerge is a combination of a quota and a contract system, with some type of organization representing growers remaining intact. "It's like two roads coming into one," he says. But, for some, the talk of a new era of selling tobacco, one that is more open to market prices, leaves a bitter aftertaste. "When things go from bad to worse, people scramble to do anything," says Theo Schonberger of Langton, who took a quota buyout in 2005 and now drives transport trucks for a living. "You're kind of grasping at straws at the last hour." Schonberger became something of a hero among tobacco farmers during that Tillsonburg meeting years ago. He walked to the front of the hall, took the microphone from the board chairman, and, in a long and impassioned address, implored his fellow growers to reject the contract system. "I didn't think it was good for the industry then, I don't think it's good now," Schonberger says. What's needed is for the growing system "to be broken down and started anew," he says. "I feel for the people who are trapped in (tobacco farming). They can't get out, they can't stay in." Enditem