Less tobacco demand = more alternative crops

Burley tobacco, the most common crop on Kentucky farms for a century or more, is becoming less common. Production dropped with the 2004 repeal of federal price supports and quotas, and buyout payments to quota holders. Now cigarette companies are cutting back their purchases, and more farmers are looking for alternative crops.

"With a decreased demand for tobacco products, the large companies that purchase Kentucky burley have either eliminated or drastically reduced many of their contracts," Mallory Bilger of The Spencer Magnet, a small weekly newspaper in Taylorsville, writes in the second half of a two-part series. She reports that growers who couldn't get contracts "have turned to alternative crops in hopes they will be able to keep their farm operations alive."

Bilger's example is the Deutsch family, which has farmed in the county for more than 100 years and has now given up on tobacco. (Bilger photo: Sandi Deutsch planted tomatoes in a "high tunnel" or "hoop house" to give them a more consistent temperature and protect them from frost.) "Sandi admitted that preparing a farm to raise alternative crops can take years," Bilger writes. "She and George have refocused their efforts on fruit and vegetable production and are also looking to turn their 200-acre farm into an agritourism attraction, or, more simply, a teaching farm."

The county's extension agent for agriculture, Bryce Roberts, told Bilger that the number of tobacco farms in Spencer County has dropped 75 percent in the last decade, driving many farmers to expand or diversify, but “There are no crops that produce the financial returns than an acre of tobacco can produce. Other farms are increasing their number of cattle and increasing the amount of other crops that they raise, including hay, corn and soybeans.” (Read more)