Kentucky: Demise of Tobacco Led to a New Enterprise

Source from:  By Justin Fenton Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer 08/16/2004

The sound of tobacco stalks bristling in the wind fills the air over this town, which straddles the border of Bracken and Mason counties with its population of 200. But this rural country about an hour southeast of Cincinnati has seen its farmland steadily vanish in the past decade as strict government restrictions on tobacco production have threatened to erase decades of progress for small farming families. Sisters Carla McDowell and Belinda Neff know the routine. For the past five years, the federal government has reduced their family farm's tobacco quota - 10 percent one year, 20 percent another, until production fell from about 11 million pounds to 5 million. Then came another option: salsa, which they had been making in their kitchen for fun and distributing to their neighbors for years. A $56,000 grant for tobacco diversification from Kentucky's Agricultural Development Board made the hobby into a viable business product, one they're hoping will be scooped up by larger stores and supermarkets. McDowell Farms Salsa was one of the first of five companies sanctioned by the Kentucky Department of Public Health to make alternate products such as salsa. Belinda and Carla - whom clients dubbed "the Salsa Sisters" - are hoping to move 16,000 jars of the fresh homemade salsa this year for $5 a piece. "It's not your traditional Kentucky product," said Kara Keeton, the communications director for the Governor's Office of Agriculture Policy. "But that is what these funds are for - to help our producers think outside of the box and look at new endeavors." 'Gobs of tomatoes' Working in the kitchen is a time-consuming chore, but two years ago it was an outlet for grief for McDowell and Neff when their mother died of cancer. A recent drought had left them with "gobs of tomatoes," so the sisters and their father went to the kitchen, where they laughed and cried as they chopped the vegetables. "It just helped us get through," McDowell said. Around that time, an agent at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture tasted a sample of the salsa and told them they ought to start selling it. "With Mom's death, we were still grieving. It was too much," she said. "A year later, she came back to us and said, 'Girls, you are going to do it.' It's amazing what we've done since last August." Like many people in this area, McDowell and Neff have day jobs, working on the farm and in the kitchen on nights and weekends. McDowell, 50, teaches first grade at Straub Elementary in Mason County. Neff, 44, is director of surgery at Meadowview Regional Medical Center in Maysville. And McDowell's husband, David, drives 73 miles every day to Sharonville, where he is a school administrator. It's the reality of modern farming, where just 3 percent of the nation's farms are producing 60 percent of America's agriculture goods. Small farmers, which rely on food production to supplement their income, feel the pinch to find ways to keep their land productive. Neighboring tobacco farmer Joyce Mains, 55, says people don't realize the damage done when farmland is developed. "Where's the food coming from?" Mains says. "They've got all these houses coming up, but you can't eat houses." Mains helps in the McDowell kitchen "whenever I get a free moment or a free hour," working with Carla's husband taking the cores out of tomatoes so they can be fed through a slicer. "We're doing everything, as you can see, by hand," says McDowell, lifting a large pot of steaming tomatoes from one of their new stainless steel vats and setting it on a grate to drain. The vat is one of the many new pieces of equipment the grant allowed them to buy. They still have the tomato slicer they used five years ago - a tiny, 6-inch-wide plastic slicer that had to be cranked by hand, and two larger orange slicers they refer to as the "alien choppers" for their fold-out legs, resembling a flying saucer. Instead, David McDowell, 55, stands over an electronic slicer, steadily feeding it coreless tomatoes that spill out the other side into a giant bucket, where they'll be put into a walk-in refrigerator full of tomatoes, green peppers and other ingredients. The Salsa Sisters' salsa recipe is one they created themselves and comes in mild, medium (spicy), hot, and very hot. Money came with caveats The commercial kitchen was built out of necessity. A bill passed by the General Assembly last year made it easier for farmers to sell their products on roadsides and at farmer's markets but also put a $35,000 cap on annual sales of foods produced in farm kitchens. The family needed commercial certification to expand to stores and grocery chains, to go beyond the festivals and Amish markets where they now sell. "Not too many people are going to drive way out into the country and find us," said McDowell. "We decided we needed more." Using the grant money and taking out bank loans, David McDowell and his two sons built the new kitchen, nestled between the family's home and their chicken houses and rabbit hutches. With the grant money came caveats - including that 90 percent of their products supplies be purchased from area farmers. "The key that ties this together and benefits not only them but other producers in the area is the fact that they are required to buy produce from the producers in the region," said Keeton. "And to make the amount of salsa they're hoping to make, they'll need quite a lot." That cooperation is important for the community, one of the most tobacco-dependent parts of Kentucky, Keeton said. Census data show a 36 percent drop in tobacco farms in Bracken County from 1997 to 2002, a 56 percent drop in acreage of tobacco farms and a 62 percent drop in pounds of tobacco sold. In Mason County, the drop is nearly identical - a 32 percent reduction in farms, 59 percent in acres and 62 percent in pounds. Since 2001, the state awarded 1,800 grants totaling $160 million for farmers to branch into new areas. It's a way to minimize the risk of taking on a new project, Keeton said. McDowell Farms Salsa production has multiplied from 2,000 jars last year to an expected 16,000 this year, and they've targeted several Maysville area stores for distribution, with an ultimate goal of landing the 50,000 jars on the shelves of Wal-Mart. They've surpassed their own expectations, overflowing the kitchen and forcing the storage of extra boxes of jars in their garage, and have tentative plans for a storage facility to be built across the property. Enditem