Burley tobacco growers, a dwindling breed in the mountains, likely will be able to sell their crop at just one local market this year.
Warren Anders, along with his sons, will operate Planters Tobacco Warehouse, opening Tuesday morning. For the better part of a century, Asheville has been a hub of burley tobacco sales.
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"The Burley Stabilization folks will be there, and right now we're talking to two or three other (buyers)," Anders said. Burley Stabilization, based in Knoxville, Tenn., is a nonprofit cooperative that buys tobacco.
The other large sales market, Dixie Big Burley Tobacco, operated by Marty Owen and his family for decades, likely will not be open this year. Several calls and an e-mail to Owen went unanswered last week. Anders and Stanley Holloway, an agent with the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service in Yancey County, both said they understand Dixie Big Burley would not open this year.
Changing times
Burley tobacco, prized for its ability to absorb flavorings, usually makes up about a third of a cigarette. It grows better in the mountains, where cooler nights and foggy mornings in the fall help it retain the desired moisture.
A federal buyout of the tobacco price support program went into effect in 2005, and since then the number of burley tobacco growers has dropped significantly.
Madison County, for instance, traditionally the state's top burley producer, had about 2,000 growers and more than $14 million in income in the mid-1980s. Now it has about 50 growers and came in second and fourth in 2007 and '08, respectively, for burley tobacco production, lagging behind counties in the east.
In 2008, Rockingham County produced 620,000 pounds of burley from 310 acres, compared to 350,000 pounds from 220 acres in Madison, according to N.C. Department of Agriculture figures.
Holloway, who also serves as the burley tobacco coordinator for the mountains, estimates that this year Yancey County had about 125-150 acres in tobacco production, spread between 15-20 growers.
"When I came to work with extension in 1997, our tobacco mailing list … was over 1,400," he said. "In its heyday, we had in the neighborhood of 1,200-1,300 acres in production. Madison was about 2,400 acres. So, it is off significantly."
Rain causes problems
Those still in the business had a pretty good growing season - until late in the year when the rains just wouldn't quit.
"I had a lot cut down, but it rained so much and there was so much water standing in the fields, I couldn't get it out," said Neal Woody, who grew about 85 acres this year.
Growers typically cut the tobacco and let it sit in the fields for a few days to wilt and dry before hanging it in a barn to cure. With so much rain, the tobacco in the fields got splashed with a lot of mud this year.
"Overall, it was a very good crop, which is surprising that with the weather conditions we didn't have blue mold," Holloway said. "But there was a lot of difficulty in getting the crop harvested and in barn."
That mud-splashed tobacco might not bring top dollar. Holloway said early indications are that prices this year will be in the mid-$1.60s, about where they were last year.
Situation stabilizing
Next year, local burley growers may see less competition from their neighbors down east, Holloway said. Once the support program went away, that freed up growers down east to try growing burley, and they attacked burley with vigor.
"I think the expansion of burley into nontraditional areas has come to a standstill," Holloway said. "There are not really any new production areas. Some of them tried burley for a year or two, then decided that's not really what they prefer. The other thing is the demand for flue-cured tobacco has increased, and that's what they're used to growing and what they're best at."
Holloway noted that burley also takes about twice as much nitrogen fertilizer as flue-cured, and Piedmont area growers weren't used to that. They also had trouble with mechanical harvesters cutting off the plants' bottom leaves, or flyings, reducing yield by about 10 percent. Harvesting usually is done by hand here.
For his part, Woody, 64, just hopes to make a profit and keep at it next year. He'll sell this year at Planter's warehouse, and hopes to be back there next year.
"I'd like to make it a few more years," he said. Enditem
