Some Kentucky Schools Grow Tobacco

Source from:  The Courier-Journal by WILLIAM ALLEN  05/11/2004

Critics say agricultural programs, ban on smoking send mixed message Oldham County High School junior Eric Ferguson states flatly: "I don't smoke, and I don't have a desire to smoke." But like other students in more than a dozen public schools in Kentucky, he does grow tobacco. Eric works with burley as part of agricultural education classes at Oldham County High. Anti-smoking advocates say that's part of a mixed message in some Kentucky schools, most of which ban student smoking, deliver anti-tobacco lessons in health class and offer cessation programs for students who smoke. [img border=0 hspace="4" vspace="4" align="left" src=http://www.tobaccochina.com/english/picture/05-10-2004_A3_DAY_0510tobacco.jpg] A statewide survey of school tobacco policies, done by the University of Kentucky and released last month, found that at least 39 schools own or lease a federal tobacco quota — the right to grow and sell a certain amount of tobacco each year. Fourteen of those schools have students involved in producing tobacco. The other schools did not specify for the confidential survey how their quotas are used. Schools having tobacco quotas is a phenomenon that resulted from school consolidations in the 1970s and 1980s, said David Coffey, a Western Kentucky University agriculture professor. Schools buying farmland for new buildings and other facilities would often keep the tobacco allotment. School officials in some districts that have tobacco quotas even as they ban student smoking defend that seeming contradiction by saying that even though tobacco farming is declining in Kentucky, burley remains an important crop and that some students need to learn how to grow it. Some also say the skills learned in growing burley can be used with other crops. "We do anything and everything we can do to try to keep the kids from smoking," said Shannon White, principal of Montgomery County High School, one of the schools with a tobacco base. "But I don't perceive teaching them how to grow it as encouraging them to use it necessarily," he said. Smoking is "an adult decision — that's what we try to teach the kids." In addition, White and school officials in Mercer, Oldham and Shelby counties said they are reducing their focus on tobacco farming and are shifting their agricultural programs to include such alternative crops as flowers and shrubs and raising catfish and shrimp. But some health advocates said they are concerned about the message students get when schools support raising tobacco. "We're encouraged and glad to see schools taking a pretty serious look at this and trying to move away from it," said Menisa Marshall, spokeswoman for the American Lung Association of Kentucky. "But we're concerned it really sends a mixed message to young people." That message, according to Marshall, is "not to use tobacco — that it's bad and hurts people — but on the other hand they see it in a school setting and the school profits from this." "The unwritten message is to grow it and be involved," she said. Ellen Hahn, a UK nursing professor who led the study of school tobacco policies, said, "There's an inherent conflict of interest" in teaching tobacco farming and health risks of smoking. Schools and smoking About 690 public and private high schools and middle schools responded to the telephone survey that contacted 1,028 of Kentucky's 1,271 schools, which was done for the Kentucky Department of Public Health. Among the findings: Fifty-eight percent of schools that responded allow employees to smoke outside, while 99 percent ban smoking indoors for employees and students, and 97 percent ban smoking anywhere on school grounds for students. At 72 percent of schools — or 480 of those that responded — officials reported that school safety officers or law enforcement officers rarely or never enforce laws governing tobacco use and possession laws. It is illegal for anyone under 18 to possess or use tobacco in Kentucky. "This shows that we have a long way to go in trying to change the pro-tobacco climate in Kentucky," Hahn said. "Schools have a huge role to play in reducing the harm caused by tobacco, and clearly, as a whole, they are not doing all they can do to help kids quit and to prevent them from starting." Tobacco use is the nation's leading preventable cause of death and disease, and Kentucky has the nation's highest smoking rate and also leads the country in several smoking-related diseases, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The teen years are especially critical for developing an addiction to cigarettes, health experts said. When young people begin smoking, they underestimate the addictive nature of tobacco and the risks of developing lung cancer, heart disease and other tobacco-related diseases, according to Hahn. In Kentucky, 22 percent of middle school students and 37 percent of high school students, are current cigarette smokers, according to the CDC. That's far above the national averages of 9 percent for middle schools and 29 percent for high schools. Working on a crop There were no smokers among the group of 10 students working last month in a greenhouse behind Oldham County High School. All of them, who said they are college-bound, have grown tobacco as part of the school's agricultural education curriculum, in which they learn about a wide range of crops and animal husbandry. "Growing tobacco in school — I don't think it's a big deal," said Cassie Stringer, a junior who wants to be a farmer. "It's not going to make anyone want to smoke. A lot of families I know make a living growing tobacco. People depend on it to live." Drew Robinson, a sophomore who is not from a farming family, plans to study landscaping and horticulture in college. "Working in tobacco definitely doesn't glorify smoking," Drew said. "It's hard work, and you get dirty." Around the end of this month, the students, who are volunteers, will help plant tobacco on an acre or less of land. The school's tobacco quota is 2,400 pounds. If the entire quota is produced and sold, it would yield approximately $4,700 based on last burley season's average price. Some schools said they use the money to support FFA activities, while others use it to help support agricultural education. Oldham agriculture teacher Boyd Johnson said the school's tobacco quota is down from 5,400 pounds about six to eight years ago. "We're gradually retiring the land we had for tobacco to (plant) trees," he said. And the school's greenhouse and tree and shrub nursery now produce more income than the tobacco operation, Johnson said. While tobacco work is ahead of them, last month the students weeded and watered flats and pots of impatiens, hostas, burning bushes and other plants or shrubs. Earlier they had worked on the crabapples, honey maples and other trees growing elsewhere on school grounds. Growing such nursery and landscaping greenery are among the alternatives being taught in many schools in traditional tobacco-farming counties, Weedman and other school officials said. "It's a good mix for people moving away from tobacco production with small acreage and small equipment, as many tobacco farmers in Kentucky have been doing," Johnson said. "Not everybody in Kentucky can do it. But in the Oldham area and surrounding counties, we think it could be a fit that they could move into, mainly because there's not a whole lot of startup cost and a lot of the same equipment can be used." Johnson, who said he believes tobacco production is still an important part of the state's farm economy, obtained a grant from the Kentucky Agricultural Development Board to help get the nursery operation going. Cassie Stringer's mother, Betty, said she doesn't like the idea of growing tobacco at the school but hasn't complained to school officials because she doesn't have an alternative. "I'm against it because it's growing a crop that is harmful to humans," Stringer said, although she said she's not worried that her daughter's involvement will make her more likely to smoke. "I think it would do more the other way." Principals speak Principals at the schools with tobacco quotas emphasized that school policy is tough on student smoking and that other classes cover the dangers of smoking. "We try to be as proactive as we possibly can to help students develop good health habits," said Gary Kidwell, principal at Shelby County High School. The school is one of several with tobacco bases that offer smoking-cessation programs for students, in addition to suspending them for tobacco use violations. Another is Mercer County High School. Terry Yates, Mercer's principal, said, "Even though we are an ag community in our area, I feel like our parents want our kids to make good choices, and I don't think they want their children to be saddled with diseases from tobacco use." Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education, said offering education about the "hard work" of tobacco growing doesn't mean that a school can't be effective in teaching an anti-smoking message to students. But Gross applauded the movement toward alternative crops. "That's the way the wind is blowing," she said. "I predict eventually you will see no schools with tobacco" quotas. A decline in the tobacco quota is the trend at Montgomery County High School. Although the quota rose to about 17,000 pounds when the district bought a 174-acre farm about six years ago it has since dropped to 6,200 pounds, said Terry Ginter, the head of the school's agriculture department. Enditem