After 16 Years, Family Sticks With Farming Tobacco

Source from:  By CHARLIE HALL, The Associated Press NEW BERN, N.C. 06/14/2005

His daddy was a farmer, so John Hill never knew anything about the so-called really-good-and-easy life. With his own young maturing days embedded in Christian music, his sense of patience and humbleness continued an unassuming path. Now, 42 years old, and after 16 years struggling with a small, family farm, he is still about as chipper as a fellow with his own land, a new tractor and a big fat bank account. He has none of those. But he does have rented land, a repaired tractor, and a loving wife Theresa and children John Michael, 10, and Shannon, 13. Even with the knowledge that his tobacco price-per-pound will be 40 cents less than last year, he crawls out of his truck and walks gingerly with a genuine smile. It's overcast and he looks up. He's been doing that a lot lately - 11 inches of rain have fallen into his gauge off Janeiro Road in eastern Pamlico County, within rifle shot of the Neuse River - since the first day of May. His tobacco plants are in the ground, but his soybeans are just half-planted. "I've seen worse years," he says. "Really." Since he came off the road as a tenured musician to become a tenant farmer, he has seen some of the worst that Mother Nature could hurl at a little operation with a couple of tractors and a combine. His first year, the drought brought his tobacco crops to its knees. "It was really dry the first year I farmed," he recalls. "I had tobacco that never really did fill the tips out because it never got the rain. I remember that year." He remembers the flood surge of Hurricane Dennis - a schizophrenic storm at best - hitting his soybean fields not once or twice but three times, including a tidal surge with salt water that brought the crop to a growing standstill. In March this year, he had set April 20 as his planting date for tobacco - 170,000 sprouts from his greenhouse. That day he was not looking at the sky. He was looking at the ceiling of his house from his place on the couch. A go-cart nearly wrecked his planting season. A few days before moving all those carefully watched and controlled little tobacco plants from inside a $20,000 greenhouse to the fields, the children asked dad to crank the go-cart. It seemed so simple. But, when he ripped the cord, it all went so wrong. The throttle was wide open; he was startled and didn't let go as the cart lunged forward - straight toward his greenhouse - the family money for the coming year. He got a belly-down ride across the grass and gravel between his tractor sheds and the greenhouse - crashing into a metal pole. The doctor gave him pain pills for his back, and suggested he get an MRI or CT (computerized tomography) to find the extent of the injury. John took the pain pills and went home, and got on the couch - and stared at the ceiling and wondered and worried about his planting. That (MRI) was an expensive procedure, costing thousands. It wasn't money he had. And, it wasn't money he was going to spend. Unlike folks who work for a company and complain their salary is too little, he knows they have a hidden benefit - health insurance. An independent small-time farmer pays his own, about $6,000 a year for John and his family. He dropped his coverage three years ago, and they have been fortunate with their health. "It was cut and dry," he said. "We couldn't afford it. With the hurricanes and all, we weren't making any money. But, I hope if tobacco comes back some, I need to pick up a little bit of something." He climbed out of the bed and did some planting anyway; trays of spouts to the truck bed and onto the field. He pulled himself onto a seat beside Theresa, atop the automatic planter that puts the little seedling tobacco plants in the ground, all in a straight row behind the tractor. "I went out anyway and was going to work," he said. "We set a half-a-day. We set a couple of acres that morning and we ran out of plants about a hundred foot from the end of a row. So we stopped the planter right there and were going to go eat and finish the rows we were on. He stepped off the rigid seat and his feet touched the ground and he knew he was done. "I realized there wasn't any going back," he recalls. It was back to the bed for John. Still half-smiling, through pain, he and Theresa, and a helper, began planting again a week and a half later. There was sunshine and his farm world along the Neuse was good. The greenhouse was empty until next year. There was laughter, sighs and a feeling of relief. Then came the rain. Not just soft and sprinkling - but hard and mean and cold - pelting. It's ugly for this time of year. Meteorologists didn't panic, and neither did John. For the folks with jobs in buildings, it has been a nuisance. For a family farmer like John Hill, the constant rain has been like little liquid arrows of agony from the sky. "It's the coolest season so far that we have had," he said. "Everything seems to be about two weeks behind." "I know everybody is getting rain, but I think we have a little bit excess rain in that little particular spot where I am at and I haven't been able to plant all my soybeans." Although the rains have continued, he is optimistic that he can catch up if he can get the remainder of his 35-acres of soybeans in the ground in the next two weeks. A nor'easter dumped five inches of rain and the wind beat up his tobacco. "But, tobacco is the most forgiving crop," he said confidently. Still, those early couple of rows he planted is twice the size of the main crop. "If it would go ahead and warm up - it's rooted and it's growing. If it would hit some 90-degree weather and keep the rain off, it would explode (and grow)," he said. "It grows really fast when it is hot." He also can't remember a season when he has had as much free time as this year, although that has given his back some time to mend. "It's just been hard to get in the field, hard to do anything at all," he said. "But, I've seen so much of this (weather), it doesn't bother me anymore." But he surely does wish it would stop raining. "Tobacco normally on a drier year does better," he explains. "Tobacco doesn't like a lot of water. It affects the quality. Tobacco is still small now and you don't want a lot of water on it when it gets full grown." If it rains for another month, he'll start to have sleepless nights. "The crop's still got time to do really good," he says. "Tobacco is probably the most forgiving crop there is. A lot of things can happen to it and it can still come back and do OK. It is the most forgiving crop." If the dry, hot weather comes, in about two to three more weeks, the tobacco will be "topped out," with the flowers removed by machine. "The flowers are no good," he says. "When they are broke out all the growth goes into the tobacco, instead of a flower getting bigger and bigger. It's like pruning something." In about a month, it should be time for the first of about four harvests of the tobacco leaves - a process that starts at the bottom of the tobacco plant and eventually leaves nothing but a spiny stalk. As for his soybeans, they become a long-term project, with harvest not coming until November. There is still a long summer and fall ahead and John hopes he doesn't add a strained neck to his already ailing back - looking up to the sky. Enditem