Some small farmers will take their leave.If you want to see a small tobacco farm, you'd better take a picture. After what happened in 2004, it might not be long before they exist only in photographs and memories. The $10.1 billion federal tobacco buyout, passed by Congress in October, will pay about $3.8 billion to quota holders in the Tar Heel Tar Heel or Tar·heel n. A native or resident of North Carolina. [Perhaps from the tar that was once a major product of the state.] State during the next 10 years. It also could shrink the number of tobacco farms. Within the next couple of years, half the 7,850 in the state likely will be gone, says Blake Brown, an economist at N.C. State University. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] About 80% of tobacco farmers already grow leaf under contract to cigarette companies. Without the government buying tobacco, nearly all will. It's easier for companies to contract with a few large growers than with many small ones. Smaller and older quota-holding farmers who have hung on to their fields and tractors awaiting the buyout likely will quit planting tobacco, speeding consolidation. The buyout ends a program that limited production, propped up prices and made American tobacco uncompetitive with foreign-grown leaf. The amount farmers were allowed to grow has dropped 50% since 1997. Had the quota system Quota System can refer to:
Acreage of burley tobacco Burley tobacco see nicotianatabacum. , typically grown on small farms in the west and Piedmont Piedmont, region, Italy Piedmont (pēd`mŏnt), Ital. Piemonte, region (1991 pop. 4,302,565), 9,807 sq mi (25,400 sq km), NW Italy, bordering on France in the west and on Switzerland in the north. , likely will shrink because of pressure from residential and commercial development. Tobacco farming could cease in some western counties, where mountains make large-scale farming impractical. But the acreage of flue-cured tobacco, which made up more than 97% of the state's total tobacco receipts in 2003, is likely to increase on the flat land of Eastern North Carolina Eastern North Carolina or (often abbreviated as ENC) is the region of North Carolina which includes the eastern third of North Carolina. It includes the Outer and Inner banks, thus it is often known geographically as the state's coastal region. , where the growing season growing season, period during which plant growth takes place. In temperate climates the growing season is limited by seasonal changes in temperature and is defined as the period between the last killing frost of spring and the first killing frost of autumn, at which is longer and mechanization mechanization Use of machines, either wholly or in part, to replace human or animal labour. Unlike automation, which may not depend at all on a human operator, mechanization requires human participation to provide information or instruction. is easier. "You might see 500-acre tobacco fields" instead of the patches that long had enabled small farmers to survive on price-supported tobacco, says Billy Ray Hall, president of the Raleigh-based North Carolina North Carolina, state in the SE United States. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean (E), South Carolina and Georgia (S), Tennessee (W), and Virginia (N). Facts and Figures Area, 52,586 sq mi (136,198 sq km). Pop. Rural Economic Development Center. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] Money from the buyout will help more farmers move to niche crops. Growth continued last year in specialty melons, lettuces, blue-berries, strawberries, goat meat, cheeses, fish farming Fish farming is the principal form of aquaculture, while other methods may fall under mariculture. It involves raising fish commercially in tanks or enclosures, usually for food. and sweet potatoes sweet potato, trailing perennial plant (Ipomoea batatas) of the family Convolvulaceae (morning glory family), native to the New World tropics. Cultivated from ancient times by the Aztecs for its edible tubers, it was introduced into Europe in the 16th cent. . Growers in the state sold $3 million of sprite melons, which weren't produced here three years earlier. About $27 million went to growers of eastern cantaloupes and $5 million to those who raised red seedless Seed´less a. 1. Without seed or seeds. Adj. 1. seedless - lacking seeds; "seedless grapefruit" seedy - full of seeds; "as seedy as a fig" seedless adj → watermelons. The state also should experience a 50% increase in blackberry blackberry, name for several species of thorny plants of the genus Rubus of the family Rosaceae (rose family). See bramble. blackberry growers during the next five years. Good farmland--for growing tobacco or raising niche crops--is getting harder to find. Many cities in the state are growing, and developers are converting farms into neighborhoods. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the federal agriculture census, 3.9% of the farmland in the state--366,000 acres--was lost from 1997 to 2002. Farmland has been converted from forests, making up for some crop-acreage losses. But most of the million acres of forest lost between 1990 and 2002 were to development, according to a 2004 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Not only is land harder to find, but labor costs could rise for some Tar Heel farmers. The North Carolina Growers Association and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), AFL-CIO, is a labor union representing migrant farm workers in the Midwestern United States and North Carolina. History FLOC was founded in Toledo, Ohio, in 1967 by Baldemar Velasquez. reached an agreement that allows about 8,500 foreign farm workers in the state to form a union and provides for better pay and benefits such as sick days and bereavement Bereavement Definition Bereavement refers to the period of mourning and grief following the death of a beloved person or animal. The English word bereavement leave. The agreement covers more than 1,000 farms, many of which grow cucumbers for Mt. Olive Pickle pickle, general term for fruits or vegetables preserved in vinegar or brine, usually with spices or sugar or both. Vegetables commonly pickled include the beet, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, olive, onion, pepper, and tomato. Co. The deal could crack the door for better working conditions and increased pay for the rest of the estimated 43,500 foreign farm workers in the state, supporters say. But by November, fewer than half the potential members had signed union cards and agreed to pay dues. Producers of the state's top agricultural commodity faced their own uncertainties. Experiments continued on some Eastern North Carolina hog farms The Hog Farm is an organization considered to be America's longest running hippie commune. With beginnings as an actual collective hog farm in Tujunga, California, the group, founded in the 1960s, by a group of people including Wavy Gravy, evolved into a "mobile, to find an economically and environmentally sustainable way to deal with pollution. A moratorium A suspension of activity or an authorized period of delay or waiting. A moratorium is sometimes agreed upon by the interested parties, or it may be authorized or imposed by operation of law. on new hog farms is in place until an acceptable waste-treatment method can be found.
N.C. EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES
(employees with unemployment insurance in agriculture, forestry and
fishing)
1999 2001 2003
Employers 3,062 3,081 2,917
Employment 30,971 31,654 30,422
Total wages (millions) $628.2 $703.5 $713.6
Average weekly wage $390.09 $427.41 $451.11
Source: Employment Security Commission
TOP FARM STATES
(millions)
STATE CASH RECEIPTS
California $28,558
Texas 17,008
Iowa 13,680
Nebraska 11,347
Kansas 9,850
Minnesota 9,375
Illinois 9,155
North Carolina 7,270
Florida 6,580
Wisconsin 6,360
UNITED STATES 227,596
Source: N.C. Department of Agriculture, 2003
TOP N.C. COMMODITIES
(millions)
Hogs $1,533
Broilers 1,512
Greenhouse/nursery 845
Tobacco 598
Turkeys 398
Cotton 294
Chicken eggs 242
Soybeans 238
Cattle and calves 220
Corn 151
Dairy 143
Christmas trees 100
Other 996
Total 7,270
Source: N.C. Department of Agriculture, 2003 cash receipts
Note: Table made from pie chart.
TOP COUNTIES
(millions)
CROPS ANIMALS TOTAL*
Johnston $125.6 Sampson $462.9 Sampson $565.8
Henderson 121.5 Duplin 454.9 Duplin 534.9
Mecklenburg 104.1 Union 226.4 Union 271.5
Sampson 94.0 Wilkes 205.7 Wayne 240.0
Wilson 91.1 Wayne 176.7 Wilkes 215.9
Buncombe 77.7 Bladen 149.4 Bladen 204.6
Duplin 74.0 Randolph 146.6 Johnston 195.0
Robeson 63.0 Chatham 110.1 Randolph 174.6
Columbus 59.1 Greene 104.7 Robeson 168.5
Pitt 59.0 Robeson 101.1 Greene 141.4
*includes government payments
Source: N.C. Department of Agriculture, 2002 cash receipts
NATIONAL RANKING
SHARE STATES
N.C. OF U.S. AHEAD
COMMODITY RANK PRODUCTION OF N.C.
Tobacco 1 37.4%
Sweet potatoes 1 37.0
Hogs 2 16.6 Iowa
Christmas trees 2 21.3 Oregon
Pickling cucumbers 2 10.9 Michigan
Turkeys 2 15.5 Minnesota
Poultry and eggs 3 9.2 Georgia, Arkansas
Trout 3 8.3 Idaho, Washington
Blueberries 4 11.9 Mich., N.J., Ore.
Broilers 4 8.6 Ga., Ark., Ala.
Greenhouse/nursery 4 6.2 Calif., Fla., Texas
Strawberries 4 0.8 Calif., Fla., Ore.
Source: N.C. Department of Agriculture, 2003
FOR MORE INFORMATION N.C. Department of Agriculture; 1001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC; (919) 733-7125. RELATED ARTICLE: FARM REPORT TREND: Farmland continues to vanish in the face of encroaching urbanization. OUTLOOK: With the tobacco-quota system gone, many small growers will be forced into retirement or growing other crops by large farms that can operate on thinner margins. |
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