Farmers Standing by Tobacco, Particularly as Researchers Find New Uses for Crop

Source from:  By LARRY CHESNEY, Special to The T&D Monday, September 01, 2008 09/02/2008

This article by Larry Chesney is reprinted with permission from South Carolina Farmer, the magazine of the S.C. Farm Bureau Federation. Photographs are by Larry Kemmerlin of South Carolina Farmer. The first sack of seeds arrived in South Carolina more than three centuries ago via some hardy English colonists from Barbados. With the ideal temperatures and long growing season along the coast, tobacco quickly became a mainstay of the state's fledgling economy. By 1860 South Carolina ranked third in per capita wealth among the 33 states, thanks to a combination of cotton, rice and tobacco. After a few ups and downs, including the War Between the States, which destroyed half the state's tobacco crop, South Carolina's "bright leaf" production rebounded, thanks to a top-quality crop and a heavy-smoking population. Today, the Palmetto State's tobacco crop is considered one of the highest-quality, flue-cured leaves available, and demand has remained steady, despite the war on smoking here in the United States. "Consumption here in this country has definitely gone down, but demand for our tobacco is up," explains David Owens, a Marion County farmer who's worked tobacco full time since graduating from Clemson University in 1995. "Of course, a lot of ours is exported, and that's fine. That means there's still a big demand for it." Darlington farmer Ryan Galloway echoes Owens' observations. "We have contracts with Philip Morris," says Galloway, "and they export to, I believe, over 160 countries. Worldwide, there's a big market." How big is the international demand for US. tobacco? "I understand that smokers in China outnumber the total population of the United States," Galloway continues. "The main goal of a lot of tobacco companies now is getting in on these overseas market." Both Galloway and Owens are examples of young farmers who are continuing their family's tobacco-growing heritage. Galloway began farming full time after graduating from Anderson College in 2003. Before that he was busy working tobacco and other crops on his father's farm from the time he could walk. "When I was little, my father was always putting me up on the tractor or in the truck with him and I've been hard at it ever since," Galloway says. "Farming, especially growing tobacco, is all I've ever known, and it's what I always intended to do as a career. My brother and I are the fourth generation and we plan to keep it going strong." David Owens also grew up on the farm, with rows of tobacco plants a part of the scenery year after year. "I could give up growing tobacco if I had to," Owens says, "but it would be tough because, after a while, it's kind of in your blood." Owens says he's recently added peanuts to his farm, but admits that they can never replace the income from tobacco. "A typical yield from tobacco in our area is around 2,200 to 2,400 pounds per acre," Owens continues. "This year, tobacco should be selling at around $1.80. That's grossing upwards of $4,000 per acre." Not only is it difficult to find a cash crop like tobacco, but it's also hard to find one more drought-tolerant. "It's been a dependable crop," confirms Owens. But like the price increases that affect all of us, South Carolina's farmers are finding the cost to operate constantly on the increase. So while the gross profit rises, the costs rise just as fast, or faster. "Between LP for the curing and diesel for the tractors and trucks, a third of your expenses are in fuel," Owens says. "With the fuel jumping and fertilizer tripling, it's tough sometimes," Galloway laments. "But we'll keep trying to grow a good product. And as long as there's the demand out there, we'll keep doing it." Both farmers agree that the biggest threat to their tobacco crop doesn't involve operating costs or increasing anti-smoking sentiment. "Our biggest challenge -- the one that could make us get out of tobacco," says Owens, "is this immigration issue. Tobacco is a very labor-intensive crop, so without the workers, nobody in this area could grow it. That's a big issue that's facing us. It's like the peach farmers -- if they can't find the workers to pick the peaches, there's no use growing them." Keith Allen, Dillon County tobacco farmer and director-at-large of Farm Bureau's Pee Dee District, agrees that immigration is a major determining factor in the future of tobacco-growing in South Carolina. "The South Carolina immigration reform act passed by the General Assembly this year will adversely affect production of tobacco in South Carolina. North Carolina tobacco growers will gain an unfair advantage because they will not have to deal with this issue," he said. "That is why we need national immigration reform, not state legislation. I fear that this legislation will definitely hurt tobacco production in our state; in fact, right now I feel I will not grow tobacco next year because of the immigration law." While international smoking trends continue to drive up demand for South Carolina's tobacco, researchers are studying alternative uses for the plant. "It's a plant that produces a fair amount of soluble protein in its biomass," explains Bruce Fornum, Ph.D., of Clemson University's Pee Dee Research and Education Center, "So there's the opportunity to genetically modify that tobacco to produce other proteins that might be useful - possibly as an industrial protein or as a pharmaceutical protein. That would give tobacco farmers another avenue. "We've tested materials here at the station and have conducted several on-farm tests in South Carolina. Tobacco has some real advantages. Along with the protein, it's self-pollinating so you don't have problems like airborne pollen." Several colleges with ag schools are conducting experiments to both improve the tobacco plant and identify alternative uses. Clemson, North Carolina State, the University of Georgia and the University of Central Florida are just some of the institutions in tobacco country that have on-going programs and projects. Meanwhile, in California, researchers at Stanford University are growing and testing in injectable cancer vaccine in genetically engineered plants. In the private sector; researchers and bioengineering entrepreneurs have already begun to use tobacco plants as hosts for processes that may produce new antibiotics, vaccines, cancer treatments, blood substitutes, biodegradable plastics and industrial enzymes and solvents. Others are exploring the possibility of growing genetically engineered tobacco plants near munitions dumps to decontaminate the soil. While tobacco grown for such purposes doesn't sell, per pound, for as much as that sold for cigarettes, it has a much shorter growing cycle and it's not as labor intensive as flue-cured tobacco. Also, an acre of land can grow 100,000 biotech tobacco plants, but only 6,000 plants for traditional use. One cigarette company that's looking seriously at pharmaceutical uses of tobacco is J.J. Reynolds. They've created a subsidiary, Targacept, to compete with Eli Lily and Abbot Laboratories in developing nicotine-based drugs to treat Alzheimer's. However the leaf is utilized, Galloway believes tobacco farming is going to be around for a long time. "The next generation or two, there could be some drastic changes," he says, "but right now, I think we'll be growing tobacco for a long time.' "It's a commodity that we'll see grown in the Carolinas for quite some time," agrees Fornum. "We have excellent farmers in "South Carolina. That's one reason I think there's a bright future." David Branham, S.C. Farm Bureau's Director of Commodity of Commodity Relations, also thinks that tobacco has a future in South Carolina. "Farm Bureau does not promote the use of tobacco products, especially among young people, but as long as tobacco is a legal crop and as long as people can obtain it legally, our farmers will continue to grow it." Growing Tobacco to Fight Diabetes group of biomedical scientists from the University of Central Florida have established that insulin capsules produced from transgenic tobacco plants can cure diabetes in mice. Dr. Henry Daniell and his molecular biology team isolated freeze-dried plant cells from tobacco plants that were modified genetically with insulin genes. The isolated cells were then put into a powdered form and administered to five-week-old diabetic mice. After an eight-week treatment, the glucose levels in both the blood and urine were at normal levels. In addition, the beta cells began producing optimum levels of insulin. Five or ten years from now, tobacco farmers could wind up in the pharmaceutical industry. Enditem