Farmer Snuffed out of Market: So Why Raise Tobacco? Westby Man has no Desire to Habit

Source from:  By Dorothy Jasperson / Lee Newspapers WESTBY, Wis. 01/23/2006

After 65 years of growing tobacco, 83-year-old Alden Fremstad wasn't about to give up doing something he enjoyed just because someone told him to stop. "At my age, why should I?" Fremstad said. He's had people tell him he was crazy, but it doesn't bother him. He's had people tell him to find a new hobby. But why should he venture into something new if he still enjoys what he's doing? He's had people tell him it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. So he tells them to stop trying then. Today, Fremstad has 54 bales of top-grade tobacco stripped, baled and ready to sell ?with no buyer in sight. It's stacked and tied in one of seven tobacco sheds ?sheds that in their heyday were filled to capacity with pole after pole of harvested tobacco hanging for months, waiting for case weather to set in so the crop could be stripped and prepared for market. But that market bottomed out in 2005, when the federal government tobacco buyout program was implemented. Fremstad, who at one time raised 13 acres of tobacco, entered the buyout program, but couldn't bring himself to entirely stop producing the crop. "I couldn't stop cold turkey. Working is good for the soul, and hard must be even better," Fremstad said. Anyone who was raised around tobacco knows the time and effort put into the hands-on crop. Whether you pull plants, hoe, cultivate, top, cut, pile, spear, hang or strip, the end result of all the labor is based on grade and weight at the time of sale. The lucrative crop provided growers with $1.75 a pound at its peak of local production and was used by many area farmers to pay property taxes. Most tobacco farmers jumped at the chance to have someone pay them not to raise the crop. Fremstad wasn't one of them. Instead, he was one of fewer than a dozen diehard Vernon County farmers who just refused to let it all go. Fremstad stopped raising his own tobacco plants a few years ago and began buying plants from Lloyd Hardey of Viroqua. Fremstad no longer raises 13 acres of the crop and was down to three-quarters of an acre in 2005. To this day, he'd rather strip tobacco then do most anything else during the months of December and January. In 65 years, he's lost only had one crop, and this year's harvest was one of the best in 10 years. "Twenty years ago our crop was hailed out. I watched the storm clouds roll in as I stood in the field topping the crop. In a matter of minutes, the field was covered with hail. The sea of green was now a field of white," Fremstad said. Fremstad worked as street supervisor for the city of Westby for 34 years, starting in the winter storm year of 1959. He retired in 1993. When Fremstad wasn't plowing the streets, he was heading up the Westby Fire Department. Through it all, he never stopped caring for his first love and wife, Audrey, who died in 1995 after battling multiple sclerosis for 32 years. She used a wheelchair much of her life, but it never slowed the couple down. They farmed on Melby Street and raised two sons. Today, Fremstad has six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Enditem