Institute Conference Focuses on Alternatives for Tobacco Farmers

Source from:  By LAUREN CHESNUT Register & Bee staff writer November 3, 2005 DANVILLE, Va 11/04/2005

Agricultural experts shared a vast array of ideas Wednesday for transforming tobacco greenhouses and growing vegetables, fruits and flowers at a conference on tobacco alternatives at the Institute for Advanced Learning & Research. However, University of Georgia professor Forrest Stegelin's lecture on the importance of being able to market any tobacco alternative plan was what seemed to leave the biggest impression on conference attendees. "It seems like to me whatever you get into, you'd better be a marketer or a salesman," said Ringgold farmer Jimmy Collie, who has two tobacco greenhouses and grew 165 acres of tobacco this year. Pittsylvania County farmer A. J. Nuckols said he only grew a few acres of tobacco and didn't currently have a greenhouse, but thought greenhouse growing might provide an alternative income situation that would work for him. But he said he now realized he'd have to tackle a new challenge in marketing anything new he wanted to grow. "There is no marketing for tobacco," he said. "There are not but so many places to sell it. You either have a contract or you don't. There is no price negotiation." On Wednesday, Bob Anderson of the University of Kentucky explained how tobacco float bed greenhouses could be converted with polystyrene board and capillary wicking mats into hydroponic systems for growing a variety of vegetables and fruits, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, melons and raspberries. Cam Coor of Coor Farm Supply in Smithfield, N.C., described retrofitting tobacco greenhouses by constructing pipe supports for vine vegetables, growing produce in bags of pine bark and sand medium and using bumblebees for pollination. On Thursday, Chris Mullins of Virginia State University will discuss the concept of unheated "high tunnel" production systems, compared with growing produce in a retrofitted greenhouse. William Combs of Pelham, N.C. , said he attended the conference on behalf of a tobacco farmer friend who was busy with his tobacco on Thursday. Learning that winter heating costs can exceed a daylight growing productivity factor and that crops such as lettuce can freeze in a greenhouse without dying left him convinced that unheated greenhouse growing was probably the best use of a tobacco greenhouse that was no longer needed. Combs said he thought the institute conference was pertinent for farmers who had made investments in tobacco greenhouses, were too young to retire and draw Social Security and wanted to stay in farming. As with other attendees, the meeting's emphasis on marketing was not lost on Combs. "One thing that's been explained is you better have a market identified before you start," he said. "Going out there on a wing and a prayer is not going to work." Enditem