House Panel Approves Bill to Make Payment to Tobacco Growers

Source from:  WKRN News 2  02/03/2005

FRANKFORT, Ky. As a farmer and bank director, John Logan Brent says he's seen the financial turmoil sown in rural Kentucky by a judge's ruling on tobacco payments. The ruling was one that cleared tobacco companies from making a final payment to leaf growers to help offeset lower tobacco consumption. Farmers factored in the so-called "Phase Two" payments last spring when planting their tobacco, Brent told a legislative committee today that with bank loans hanging over their heads, some growers need that extra cash they counted on to help pay off debt. Brent is judge-executive in tobacco-dependent Henry County. He said today the future of the tobacco-growers farms and of their equipment is hanging in the balance of what this General Assembly does. Brent supports legislation that would distribute 114 (m) million dollars to nearly cover the 2004 Phase Two payments due to about 163-thousand tobacco growers and quotaholders in Kentucky. The bill won approval from the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee. Enditem