TV Show to Focus on Tobacco Buyout

Source from:  BY FLORENCE GILKESON: Senior Writer 03/14/2005

Tobacco farmers can turn to public access television Tuesday for answers to their questions about the quota buyout. Signup for the buyout begins Monday at Farm Service Agency offices across the tobacco-growing region. The buyout is expected to affect hundreds of Moore County people who either grow tobacco or own tobacco quotas. The Tuesday program will be conducted by North Carolina State University and will be in the form of an educational television program available on OPEN/net, an informational program on public access cable channels. OPEN/net is produced by the North Carolina Agency for Public Telecommunications and is aired across the state. In Moore County, access will be on two different stations. The program will be aired on Time Warner cable station 60, serving Aberdeen, Carthage, Foxfire Village, Pinebluff, Pinehurst, Robbins, Seven Lakes, Southern Pines and Dunn/Erwin. Whispering Pines can pick up the program through Charter Cable station 11. The program, airing from 9 until 10 p.m. Tuesday, will include basic information about the tobacco buyout and the latest update on rules for implementation and tax implications, with special emphasis on questions farmers may direct to their accountants. It will include points to consider when trying to decide whether or not to assign payments to a financial institution in order to get a lump sum payment. Dr. Arnold Oltmans and Dr. Blake Brown, professors and Extension Service specialists in the NCSU Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, will be on the program. A representative from U.S. Department of Agriculture-Farm Service Agency will also appear on the call-in show. Viewers will have an opportunity to call in questions, according to NCSU. Prior to the OPEN/net program, county Extension agents will participate in a video conference update on the buyout. Subject areas will include tobacco and family and consumer sciences. The video conference will prepare agents to address quota owners' and producers' concerns and point them to appropriate resources. Congress passed the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004, better known as the tobacco buyout bill, as a means of ending the federal tobacco marketing quota and price support loan programs. The bill provides $10.1 billion for the purchase of quotas from owners over the next 10 years. Of that amount, almost $4 billion will come to North Carolina. An information session on the buyout was held at the Moore County Agriculture Center in January and was attended by growers and owners from several area counties. Additional information about the buyout is available from Susan C. Condlin, Extension director in Lee County. Moore County does not at this time have an Extension director. The Lee County telephone number is 919-775-5624, her e-mail address is susan-condlin@ncsu.edu, and her web address is www.ces.ncsu.edu/lee/ Signup can be carried out at the Moore-Montgomery FSA office in the Moore County Agriculture Center in Carthage. The sign-up period extends until June 17. Enditem