Tobacco Funds UT Research Center

Source from:  Merri Shaffer - Staff Writer Tuesday, February 19, 2008 issue 02/20/2008

A multibillion dollar tobacco company has helped establish a tobacco research center on UT's Agricultural Campus. Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International, makers of Marlboro and Parliament cigarettes, recently presented UT with a $445,000 grant to establish the Center for Tobacco Grower Research. The center's coordinator, Daniel Green, said the mission of the new center is simply to provide information on growers rather than developing products. Because of the elimination of the federal tobacco program in 2004, information related to tobacco crops has been neither available nor reliable, he said. "Since then there had been limited information about where (tobacco has) been grown, the value of it (or) who's growing it," he said. "The effort of the center is to try to supplement what little information is available." Kelly Tiller, the center's faculty director, is a research assistant professor in the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, which examines policies, regulations and conditions that affect how farmers operate their business and how the agriculture sector performs. Tiller estimated that the number of people involved in the agricultural side of tobacco production has dropped by more than 75 percent within the past decade. The center's research will help quantify that number and the resulting economic impact of the remaining farmers. "There's a real recognition that this industry has changed tremendously in the past several years," Tiller said. "A large part of the research we are doing is trying to provide general information on the status of this industry." With the demand for tobacco on the decline, prices farmers receive have declined by roughly 25 percent in recent years, Tiller said. The center will be working directly with tobacco producers to help obtain information on the economics and production costs of today. Located in Morgan Hall, the center was started in August 2007. Green said its first major project was to develop a database of tobacco producers. Using an old list provided from the United States Department of Agriculture compiled between 2002 and 2004, the center sent invitations to tobacco growers to join its database. Tennessee is one of the largest tobacco growing states in the nation, Green said. UT's campus may have especially been chosen because of its history with tobacco economics, he added. "UT has had some experience, and we have had cooperative work with other universities as far as research and tobacco economics," he said. "There is a lot of expertise as far as tobacco economics goes, (especially) in terms of professors like Kelly Tiller." So far, the center has carried out online surveys with county extension agents who have a good handle on what is going on in their individual counties, Green said. The center will continue to gather tobacco crop information. As far as receiving criticism for aiding tobacco industry stakeholders, Green said researchers have only received one or two negative e-mails. "Anytime tobacco is involved, it is always controversial," he said. "But overwhelmingly, it has been really positive as far as what we are trying to do." However, some other universities have found the situation of a major tobacco company funding such a center as tainted. According to a Feb. 4 article in The New York Times, officials at the University of Texas business school in Austin were not comfortable with Philip Morris sponsoring events for students and have refused all tobacco money for student groups and faculty research. A Feb. 4 article in The New York Times reported the medical school at Emory University and the public health schools at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Ohio State University, Louisiana State University and the universities of Arizona, Iowa and North Carolina have also banned tobacco money. UT's center will coordinate with other universities, such as the University of Kentucky, Virginia Tech University and the University of Georgia, that study tobacco production and will conduct research in 14 tobacco-growing states. "The main thing it is helping in providing information and transparency about tobacco production in the U.S," Green said. "Because of the elimination of the federal program, there is limited information available about what is going out there." Green said the information discovered by the research center will be able to benefit tobacco producers, the tobacco industry, policy makers and those interested with public health. Enditem