Tobacco Growers See End Of Tradition

Source from:  Wisconsin State Journal BUSINESS 07/12/2005

Vernon County Has Stopped Producing; Dane County's Future Uncertain Ryan Christianson remembers watching his parents and siblings work together on hot days in June to plant the family's tobacco crop just northwest of Viroqua. "When you're growing up, you can never wait until you're old enough to sit on that tobacco planter," Christianson said. "When you're old enough to finally do it, you wish you never had to." Christianson is a fourth-generation Vernon County tobacco farmer. He learned from his father, Alvin, and later when his two daughters were old enough, they helped with the crop. Alvin, now 80, had planned to put a few tobacco plants in the ground this year for nostalgia's sake, but this will be the first year the Christiansons won't have a tobacco crop since Ole Christianson, Ryan's great-grandfather, emigrated from Norway in the late 1800s. "It's hard work in the hot sun, but I'm going to miss it," Alvin said. Christianson's experience is part of a larger trend in Vernon County. Because of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Tobacco Buyout Program, there will be no traditional tobacco crop in the county this year. The program, funded by money from tobacco companies, provides farmers with 10 years of income to help wean them from tobacco farming. The buyout ends the price support program that had given tobacco farmers allotments of acreage in exchange for guaranteeing them a market for their crops. Dane County still growing tobacco Southern Wisconsin's tobacco hot spots have always included cities such as Edgerton, Cambridge and Stoughton. And while Vernon County is going without a tobacco crop this year, the southern area's harvest this year will go on much as usual for many farmers. Larry Oberdeck, a tobacco farmer in Edgerton, said yes to the buyout, but he was also offered a contract by Swedish Match Co., maker of Red Man chewing tobacco, for 20,000 pounds of tobacco. While the double payday is good for farmers this year, there's no future guarantee. "Next year, (the tobacco companies) could say We don't need any tobacco in this area,' and we're done," he said. Oberdeck is worried about what he'll do without a tobacco crop, if it comes to that. "I'm looking for a part-time job," he said. "If we don't have tobacco, I don't see how I can (continue to farm). Corn and soybean just won't support a small farm like ours." Farmers such as Oberdeck are the big winners in the buyout program -- for now, said Donald Vuysse, an agricultural statistician with the National Agricultural Statistics Service's Wisconsin Field Office in Madison. But Vuysse agrees that could change quickly. "Basically, what's happened is that the buyout program has eliminated the guarantee (of a buyer)," he said. Wayne Farrington, a retired tobacco farmer from Edgerton, is the manager of the Wisconsin Cooperative Tobacco Growers Association. Under the old allotment program, the association bought and processed the crops farmers were unable to sell to a tobacco company. But now, without the allotments, there is no need for the association, and it will most likely dissolve within "months, not years," Farrington said. Farrington said it's hard to say what will happen to tobacco farming in southern Wisconsin, but he's cynical. "It's hard to get optimistic that tobacco is anything that you want to spend a lot of money investing in," he said. Shift away from tobacco It's ironic that the tobacco buyout program comes after the year in which Vernon County farmers received a record price for tobacco -- $1.75 per pound in 2004. For a crop that averages about 2,500 pounds per acre, that paid $4,375 per acre. While tobacco is labor-intensive, with seeding, planting, hoeing, harvesting, hanging and stripping, a farmer could get paid much more per acre for tobacco than for most other crops. Over the years, that money meant a lot. "If you had a good tobacco crop, you could buy a farm. It made that much of a difference," said George Nettum, 84, general manager since 1957 of the Viroqua-based Northern Wisconsin Cooperative Tobacco Pool, through which farmers in the northern growing zone priced and sold their tobacco. Wisconsin, which once had more than 40,000 acres in tobacco, saw its acreage slip under 10,000 per year regularly after 1966. Seeing a shift away from tobacco, Tim Rehbein of the UW-Extension office in Viroqua launched a grape-growing project with the help of a state Department of Agriculture grant in 2000. "We wanted to find a crop that had about the same amount of income per acre as tobacco, and we were able to do that," Rehbein said. "It's been a success, and more people are interested in it." The duality of tobacco and grapes can best be seen on the Lloyd Hardy farm just southwest of Viroqua. Hardy has an acre of grapes growing on his property, next to his half-acre tobacco field. Hardy has a pair of greenhouses he has used to foster seedling growth for tobacco and other crops. He had some leftover tobacco seeds and the greenhouse, so this year he put in a half-acre of tobacco. While Hardy said he has heard there might be a market for tobacco to be used in bedding for organic chicken nests, he's pretty sure he won't have a traditional buyer. Soon, Vernon County farmers will let tobacco go completely. Hardy has plans to turn his half-acre tobacco field into another vineyard next year. "This is it," Hardy said. "We're planting tobacco this year, but next year it's grapes." Enditem