Kinston Tobacco Auction Opens in Former Gold Dollar Warehouse

Source from:  Mark Lineberger Staff Writer  08/06/2004

With the auctioneer silenced for the third year in a row by electronic bidding, one farmer likened the quiet opening of the Kinston tobacco market Wednesday to a funeral procession. Many farmers questioned the future of the crop they've known all their lives as buyers walked the aisles at the former Gold Dollar Warehouse, pecking away at their hand-held electronic bidding computers. They even had their uniforms - the growers in blue jeans and caps, the buyers almost exclusively in polo shirts and khaki slacks. [img border=0 hspace="4" vspace="4" align="left" src=http://www.tobaccochina.com/english/picture/080504_tobacco.jpg] While a handful of companies were on hand, most of the tobacco was bought by the Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp., a co-op representing growers and the tobacco industry. The co-op buys all leaf that doesn't sell for an established price, holding it until someone meets the price. Stabilization bought 60 percent of Kinston's crop last year. Wednesday, prices were averaging about $157 per hundred pounds, about a nickel higher than last year's opening. "It's rough," said Lindsey Bowden, a farmer who grew about 14 acres of tobacco this year on his Wayne County farm. "It's looking like the prices are about the same as last year. It's all going to Stabilization. Hopefully it will get better." Other murmurs in the crowd flickered with optimism, some hoping that prices would go up father into the auction season. Others questioned where the industry would be in a few years. Keith Beavers, another Wayne County farmer, said it was getting harder and harder for American tobacco farmers to compete with the crops from South America and overseas. "Many of these countries use child labor and can use whatever pesticides they want without regulation," Beavers said. "I'd say about half of filler tobacco comes from overseas." But everyone agreed that Wednesday's auction was a far cry from the auctions of old, when the warehouse would be packed to the gills, and the musical cries of the auctioneer meant that the farmers were rolling in money. In those days, the city would showcase its shopping district, said Bruce Parson, director of the Kinston-Lenoir County Chamber of Commerce. Flush with the cash from a new crop of the tobacco burning holes in a few pockets, families would be eager to bring a little something back from Kinston. Keith Beavers, another Wayne County farmer, said he remembers coming to Kinston's downtown with his family on auction days, where they would shop the city's "Miracle Mile" commercial district. This week, the warehouse is more empty than full, and there's no talk of going on a shopping spree. Here, most of the talk is about the hope that this year's crop will bring in enough to get by. But there were still a few trappings left from the auctions of yesteryear. Old men still laughed, telling stories about each other's daddies, while others shouted hello to neighbors they hadn't seen in awhile. And cigarette smoke still wafted through parts of the warehouse, mixing with the sweet sent of the cured tobacco. Among the artificial hedgerows of golden leaf, floor manager Joe Parker walked quickly from bale to bale, making sure everything was in its place. He addressed the assembled crowd before the auction began. "Everyone knows what we've all been through," Parker said. "And I'm thankful that we're all here again." Not everything at the warehouse mirrored the doom and gloom on some faces when asked about the future. "I'm actually happy at the prices we got this year," said Johnnie Boyette, who farms several acres in Duplin County with her husband. "It's better than what it could have been." Her husband, Clifton, was spending the day in the fields, bringing in the next batch from the fields. A life long educator, Boyette said tobacco is the family's chief occupation this time of year. Their crop suffered this year, Boyette said, the result of days of heavy rains earlier in the growing season. She has a lifetime of memories working with the leaf. It's something her husband puts his soul into, Boyette said, making painstaking efforts to make sure everything is just right with the growing, the curing process and every other detail, all geared towards a make or break moment on the auction floor. Boyette gestured at a pile of tobacco from her family's farm. "You're out there in the fields in the heat, you wipe your face and it burns, and then there's rain just pouring down all over you," Boyette said. "But you do what you can, you either make it or you don't, but you put your livelihood on the line right here." Enditem