Limited Burley Tobacco Auction Season Begins in Kentucky

Source from:  wric.com  11/22/2005

DANVILLE, Ky. Kentucky's annual tobacco auctions opened today at Farmers Tobacco Warehouse in Danville with a first-of-its-kind. Gone was the Depression-era federal tobacco program that set price and production controls on U-S tobacco. In the past, growers were guaranteed a pay day, even if their leaf was bypassed by tobacco buyers and went into surplus stocks. This time, there was no set minimum price and no guarantee that the leaf would be claimed. That's a byproduct of the ten-point-one (B) billion dollar tobacco buyout passed by Congress last year that created a free market in the tobacco sector. The Danville warehouse is next to Centre College in this central Kentucky city. It was the only place to have a tobacco auction today in Kentucky, the nation's top producer of burley tobacco _ an ingredient in cigarettes. Enditem