 Tobacco farm in Robeson County (Tom Ross) |
The Continuing Demise of Tobacco High Cotton, Low Prices Corn Record Floriculture Agri-Tourism Fruits |
North Carolina tobacco production continued its downward trend in 2001. Although flue-cured tobacco growers had a very good year, with a yield of 2,427 pounds per acre, six pounds more than in 2000, total production of 376.2 million pounds was about 5 percent less than in 2000. Most of this decline was attributed to a reduction in acres planted, which declined by about 8 percent from 2000, to 155,000 acres (Figure 5). The decline since 1989 is even more apparent. In that year 528.1 million pounds were produced on about 259,000 acres. Thus, in a little more than a decade, production has plummeted approximately 30 percent and acres in production dropped by nearly 40 percent.
The waning acreage planted in North Carolina and other tobacco
producing states can be attributed to several factors, foremost among them
are plunging
demand
for tobacco products, lawsuits targeting cigarette manufacturers, decreasing
government quotas for production, and the importing of foreign tobacco into
the United States. Demand is plummeting as smoking becomes more expensive in
the
United States because states and cities see tobacco products as easy targets
for additional taxes. Demand is also affected by the current political environment
in which smoking is banned in many public places–in effect, making smokers
appear to be outcasts of sorts. Increased information and warnings about the
health effects of smoking are causing more people to give up the habit.
The map in Figure 5 shows that counties on the Coastal Plain are the primary
tobacco producers. Johnston, Pitt, Robeson, Nash, Columbus and Wilson all produced
more than 15 million pounds each during 2001. Tobacco is a significant crop
in all except a handful of counties in two different parts of the state. Counties
near Charlotte in the southern Piedmont produce very little tobacco, as do
those
in the northeast corner of the state.
Organic tobacco is highly prized, bringing up to $4.00 per pound, more than twice that of conventionally produced tobacco and could mean more profit on smaller acreage. It is grown without using manufactured fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, or insecticides. Natural fertilizers, such as blood meal, poultry litter, bone meal, meat meal, and feather meal, are used on “certified organic tobacco.” Chilean nitrate cannot be used. One popular organic pest control is to plant sunflowers in the tobacco fields. The flowers attract birds and good insects that attack the insects that harm tobacco.
The tobacco buyout bill recently approved by Congress and signed by President Bush entitles about 91,000 people in North Carolina to almost $4 billion over the next ten years. The goal of the buyout is to assist tobacco farmers who have experienced economic hardships because of shrinking quotas and declining demand for American tobacco. The industry already has faced pressures because of cheaper imports and political and health concerns. The buyout, funded through a quarterly assessment on tobacco manufacturers and not from general revenues, means that the current tobacco production program and price supports are eliminated. It does not prevent farmers from raising tobacco; in fact, without quotas or allotments, anyone will be permitted to grow as much tobacco as they desire and sell it for the best price he or she can get. It is likely, though, that most small farmers will be unable to make a profit, or enough profit, to continue tobacco production. Although the buyout will most likely hasten the end of the small, family-owned tobacco farms, tobacco will continue to be produced, but by fewer, larger farms in a free-market system that will almost certainly have to produce tobacco under contracts with cigarette manufacturers and export companies.
Critics of the buyout argue that the return to free-market tobacco production will not last, that sometime in the not-distant future the government will re-establish a subsidy for tobacco growers at considerable cost to taxpayers. Another criticism is that while the buyout was presented as a means to save floundering tobacco farmers, much of the money will end up with absentee landowners, not with the small, family-owned farm. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (June 10, 2004), fewer than 60,000 tobacco farmers operated in the United States in 2002, but there were almost 400,000 absentee quota owners. Nationwide, 91 people, or corporations, located overseas would receive a total of almost one million dollars.
In North Carolina, the Barnes Farming Corporation, a family owned enterprise, would be qualified to receive more than $8 million. A total of about 250 growers will receive more than $1 million each. Most are located in the eastern part of the state. The total take for these largest producers is almost $3 billion. The balance of the state's total, about $850 million, would be divided between approximately 60,000 growers. Their average payout would be about $14,000 each. All of the largest recipients in the state are tobacco growers and not absentee owners. The $3.8 billion North Carolina growers would garner is the most for any single state. Kentucky is second and will get about $2.5 billion.
Almost overlooked in the present euphoria over this windfall for growers and quota holders is that some people will lose their jobs. US Department of Agriculture (USDA) agents overseeing the present program will be losers, eventually, as the Department of Agriculture will probably terminate the Tobacco Division. Warehouse operators and their workers, already diminished greatly in numbers, will become extinct, so will tobacco auctioneers. Optimists, however, point out that the influx of money from the buyout will generate more jobs in an economy that was suffering because of problems in the tobacco industry. The buyout money is expected to be used to purchase consumer items, houses, automobiles, and other goods, for example. Further, some of it will most likely be invested in other business ventures, including agriculture.
Cotton production in North Carolina broke a record in 2001. Growers turned
out almost 1.7 million 480-pound bales, surpassing the previous record set
in 2000.
Farmers put 970,000 acres of the state's cropland in cotton, the highest since
1937. But the record yield was bittersweet in that prices dropped to about
30 cents
per pound, down from about 53 cents the prior year. Perhaps as a result, production
in 2002 dropped to just 806,000 bales, grown on 920,000 acres. Cotton is no
substitute for income lost by declining tobacco production.
The “cotton belt” of North Carolina takes a crescent shape and includes the Coastal Plain region and some of the Piedmont, particularly the eastern and southern peripheries of the Piedmont . Leading production counties are Northampton, Sampson, and Halifax (Figure 6).
2001 was a great year for most field crops. Corn production in 2001 was 78 million bushels, about 4 million more than in 2000. Although the acres planted in corn decreased by 15,000 acres to 625,000 harvested acres, yield per acre was at a record high. Farmers averaged 125 bushels per acre, nine more than the record set in 2000. Price per bushel also increased, by 29 cents to $2.30 per bushel.
Corn is an important crop throughout the Coastal Plain and Piedmont, except around the Raleigh and Charlotte urban areas. Corn is not a major crop in the Mountains (Figure 7).
North Carolina flower growers generated $161 million in 2002, an increase of almost 20 percent from $136 million in 2001. North Carolina sales ranked 8th in the United States. Major floriculture crops include bedding, garden, and perennial plants. Others are potted flowering plants, with poinsettias dominating this category ($16 million of the $36 million earned in 2002). North Carolina is the second largest state in production of potted poinsettias and it ranks among the top ten in chrysanthemums, azaleas, lilies, orchids, hostas, and bedding plants, including garden plants. The rapid expansion of this segment of the agricultural industry resulted from the growth of single-family homes in the state, an aging population that likes to garden, and the industry’s foray into mass merchandise outlets, supermarkets, and do-it-yourself home improvement stores.
A new component of North Carolina’s agricultural industry has been growing since the publication of The North Carolina Atlas in 2000. It is agri-tourism, which includes corn mazes (maize mazes), hayrides, pick-your-own strawberries, fruits and vegetables farms, petting farms, and other rural lifestyle activities that attract non-rural people into the country-side. Statistics on the magnitude of such activities are not available but they clearly are gaining in popularity.
During the past decade North Carolina has lost 100 apple orchards and the acreage in orchards dropped from 10,503 in 1991 to 6,962 in 2001. The number of apple trees in 2001 was 1,003,731, down from 1,191,369 in 1991. However, the number of trees per acre increased from 113 to 144 during the 1991-2001 period. Apple growers realized about $17 million income in 2001.
Peach growers experienced a more dramatic decline than did apple farmers. While the number of peach orchards declined to 125 in 2001, down from 145 in 1995, the acreage in peaches declined by almost half. In 1991 2,039 acres of peaches were in production, but by 2001 that number had decreased to 1,195 acres. The value of the crop was about $5 million.
Commercial vineyards expanded rapidly in the 1991-2001 period, from 68 to 224. Acreage in vineyards almost doubled, up from 545 to 1,020. Blueberries farms accounted for 4,482 acres in 2001, up from 3,948 in 1996. Blueberry farmers realized income of $19 million in 2001.
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