Tobacco Farmers Pleased With Exit Help

Source from:  HANK DANISZEWSKI AND CHIP MARTIN, Free Press Reporters  03/31/2005

Those wishing to leave the troubled industry will receive aid from both Ottawa and the province. Ontario tobacco farmers eager to bail out of the rapidly shrinking industry finally got a break yesterday. Fred Neukamm, chairperson of the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board, said the announcement of $50 million in provincial funding came as a great relief since it had been promised in the 2003 election. "We have producers who want and need to exit the industry right away," said Neukamm, who farms near Aylmer. The funding was part of a $129-million farm aid package announced yesterday by Agriculture Minister Steve Peters. The money will be used in conjunction with $67 million in federal aid to buy out the quota of tobacco farmers who want to leave the industry, which has been struggling with declining cigarette consumption and global competition. But Neukamm said Peters promised a long-term strategy that would support some level of continued tobacco protection as well as future buyouts for growers who want to leave. Neukamm said tobacco producers also got a pleasant surprise when a $1-billion farm aid package announced by federal Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell yesterday included $13.9 million in income support for tobacco farmers. Neukamm said the details of the quota buyout program are still being negotiated, including a controversial "reverse auction" system that will put producers willing to take lowest price for quota at the front of the line. Neukamm said the tobacco board had hoped all $50 million would go into quota buyout programs. Instead, $15 million will go toward economic diversification projects in communities in the tobacco belt. Gar Mahood, executive director of the Non Smokers' Rights Association, said he wants to see the details of the provincial program to ensure it is a genuine "exit" strategy to get farmers out of growing an uneconomic crop. He noted the mandate of the tobacco board is to promote and market tobacco. Neil Collishaw, a researcher with Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, said earlier buyout programs had loopholes that allowed some tobacco farmers to get back into the industry. "We've been through this before," he said. Enditem