Unpaid Canadian Tobacco Farmers Left in Limbo

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 03/11/2011

Some tobacco farmers in Canada have filed a complaint against the Tillsonburg tobacco buyer, True Blend, according to a story in The Simcoe Reformer. The farmers allege that the company owes them money for tobacco already delivered. Last month, a story in the Brantford Expositor said that farmers had received no payments since September 23, though a co-owner of the company, Grant Sanders, was quoted as saying that farmers were being paid. Sanders' comment was borne out by the Simcoe Reformer story, which said that True Blend had started paying out again at the end of February. However, only six farmers were said to have been paid before payments had dried up again, leaving, it was alleged, $6 million unpaid on delivered tobacco. The lack of payments is not the farmers' only concern. They still have undelivered leaf sitting in their barns, and this will impede their ability to produce tobacco during the coming season because buyers are uninterested in contracting with growers with held-over crop. Enditem