SUNBURY - Major international tobacco conglomerates, looking to buy up quality cigar filler, have moved into the Valley and struck alliances with Amish and Mennonite farmers famed for avoiding anything as modern as electricity.
"The big boys - R.J. Reynolds and Phillip Morris- are here," said Norm Conrad, an educator with the Penn State Cooperative Extension, in Mifflinburg. "They're buying our tobacco."
![]()
What's fueling the demand is the availability of millions of tons of Pennsylvania Seedleaf, rich, full-bodied Type 41 tobacco, which is commonly grown in Montour, Northumberland, Snyder and Union counties. Finer, flue-cured cigarette tobacco blends - grown mostly in the warmer climates of Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee - are increasingly less in demand because people are smoking fewer cigarettes.
Cigars, though, continue to be popular and have led to the growth of cigar bars, clubs and shops.
Between 1993 and 2007, the use of large cigars and cigarillos increased by an estimated 124 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2007, an estimated 4.8 billion large cigars and cigarillos were consumed in the United States.
The demand for Seedleaf has made Pennsylvania the only tobacco farming state that added farms from 2002 to 2007. During this period, the nation's tobacco farms, mostly in the South, dropped by 72 percent, while Pennsylvania's rose by 28 percent.
"Smoking cigars is a niche pleasure," Conrad said. "One that is largely unaffected by the advertising campaigns launched against smoking by the government over the past eight years. Cigarettes are heavily taxed by federal and state governments."
And there are no quotas in Pennsylvania, unlike in other tobacco-growing states. In Pennsylvania, almost anyone can grow and sell tobacco.
A decade ago, Pennsylvania farmers thought growing tobacco was risky business. However, production reports show the crop is making a comeback in the commonwealth, where many farmers are bucking a national trend and turning to tobacco to turn a profit.
More than 500 Pennsylvania farms - located mainly in Central Pennsylvania - planted 7,900 acres of tobacco for a 17.6 million-pound harvest last year. That's an increase of more than 100 percent since 2002, when production dipped to 6.8 million pounds, state Department of Agriculture statistics show.
Tobacco production from Pennsylvania family farms in 2009 reached a value of $31.5 million.
In the 2007 agricultural census year, the more than 40 farms in Montour, Northumberland, Snyder and Union counties produced 1.1 million pounds of tobacco.
Conrad said most of the state's tobacco growers are concentrated in Lancaster County and other centrally located counties.
Pennsylvania's midsection is a good place for the crop, Conrad said.
"Barns are good for curing, the farmers have the know-how to handle the plant and the air-curing knowledge needed to dry out the leaves and decrease the nicotine content," Conrad said.
The plant uses nutrients created by manure, so it is farm-friendly; and it loves dirt rich in limestone, another plus in the Valley.
"This region, with our geographic conditions and the geology, supports the growth of Pennsylvania Seedleaf," he said. "Our farmers know how to grow it."
Many are Amish and Mennonite with large families capable of handling the labor-intensive, back-breaking work, he said.
Tobacco fits with either produce or dairy and produces gross income of $3,000 to $5,000 an acre, so it is suitable for the smaller family farms in the Valley.
Two of those families are the Martins, of Milton, and the Simes, who live near Beaver Springs.
Michael Martin has operated the family farm for six years, taking over for his father, who ran it for more than 50 years.
"It's a generational thing," Martin said. "My father got the farm from his father. We go way back."
Among the crops they grow are 10 acres of Type 41 tobacco.
It's a good cash crop for the family, Martin said.
He harvests about a ton of tobacco per acre.
The going price this year for a pound of Type 41 is $1.60 a pound. Last year it was $1.75 a pound. That adds up to about $32,000 for those 10 acres.
"The price fluctuates from year to year," Martin said, shrugging. "This year, it's a bit low."
People think of Kentucky and North Carolina as prime tobacco-growing regions - and they are.
"But Pennsylvania farmland is very productive as well," Martin said. "The weather here is good growing weather for some varieties of tobacco. It's certainly been warm enough this summer for tobacco."
The peak harvesting season for Type 41 tobacco is mid-August through the end of September, Martin said.
He will likely sell the tobacco to Lancaster Leaf, a division of R.J. Reynolds.
But right now, as harvesting nears, Martin is topping the tobacco off. That is, breaking the flower from the leaf.
"We'll generally do this in the morning, while the leaf is wet," he said.
When the tobacco crop is half-grown, flower buds begin to appear. These flower heads are removed or "topped" to prevent seed formation, forcing the plant to focus on leaf production.
The result is larger, thicker, darker leaves that mature more uniformly and contain more nicotine.
Topping is done by hand or with special machines that cut the flower heads and sacrifice a few leaves.
Martin tops the plants by hand.
Topping requires two or three trips over the field to catch all the plants.
"It's back-breaking work," Martin said. "We cut it, take it in and hang it up to dry out. We hang it on tobacco rails."
Martin said the drought this year made everything a little bit more difficult.
"If we hadn't gotten that rain to break the drought, the weather would have done us in," Martin said.
He notes that his early plantings need rain. Their growth seems to be stunted.
Meanwhile, Joseph Simes runs a small farm on which he grows corn and Type 41 tobacco.
Like Martin, Simes has found his eight acres of tobacco very profitable over the years.
"My father grew soybeans, corn. We grow grains, mostly," Simes said. "But with the going rate per pound for tobacco, it just seemed best for us to grow and sell tobacco. You know they call it the mortgage payer, because for many farmers, this crop helps pay for the farm."
Simes expects this year's harvesting to go well, "although we could use more rain."
Simes also sells to Lancaster Leaf, and used to sell to Trileaf Tobacco Co., in New Holland, a division of Phillip Morris.
"But the type of tobacco we now grow isn't suited to cigarettes," Simes said. Enditem
