The Vegetable Growers News

Southeasterners Pursue
Tobacco Alternatives

By Karen Gentry Associate Editor

For the first time last year, Kevin Evans, a third generation grower from Georgetown, Ky., didn’t grow tobacco on his farm. From left at the Lexington, Ky. Farmers Market are his daughter Jenny Evans and his niece Erin who are selling alternative crops - fruits and vegetables.

In 1982 Kevin Evans, a third generation tobacco grower from Georgetown, Ky., could have been called a poster boy of sorts for the tobacco industry. That year he won a leadership award given to young farmers by the Philip Morris Company and was growing up to 15 acres of tobacco. Last year for the first time Evans grew no tobacco and he has no regrets. His diversified enterprise now includes vegetables, an apple orchard and farmers’ market. “We always raised between 10-15 acres of tobacco. This past year was the first year we didn’t raise any tobacco,” said Evans. Faced with a decrease in the quota in the amount of tobacco that can be grown, fewer smokers and tobacco imports, many tobacco growers in the Southeast like Evans are turning to growing vegetables, fruits, nursery crops or finding other off-farm employment. Evans said he knew six or seven years ago that he wanted to get out of tobacco and wanted something he and his wife could handle mostly themselves, as their teenagers were growing up and leaving the farm. He put in a small orchard of apples and pears and then started growing two to three acres of vegetables for farmers’ markets. “We slowly kept increasing every year,” said Evans, who now also grows for the wholesale market. Evans now grows 40 acres of bell peppers, more than 40 acres of cabbage and two acres of eggplant and tomatoes on an experimental basis. They sell vegetables in their farm shed from July-November. He said selling the health benefits of fruits and vegetables isn’t compatible with growing tobacco. “With the tobacco situation we’re glad we went ahead and did it,” Evans said. He added that tobacco growers who switch to growing vegetables must buy different equipment and adjust to commodities where there is no guarantee of price or profit. Tobacco is the biggest crop in Kentucky and represents 50% of the crop value. It has been an $800-$900 million industry in Kentucky, according to Will Snell, ag economist for the University of Kentucky. Out of 90,000 farms in the state, 45,000 grow tobacco, he said. This year the quota for the amount of tobacco that can be grown in Kentucky and other tobacco growing states has been cut by 45%, on top of a 28% reduction last year, according to Brent Rowell, Extension vegetable specialist for the University of Kentucky. He said the quota is determined by the buying intentions of companies and the existing stock or pool. Although the tobacco quota has fluctuated, the difference now is growers don’t expect it to fully recover to the high levels, according to Rowell. As tobacco returns per acre have been around $1,800 per acre, replacing that return can be difficult. Evans expressed concern about older growers, particularly in outlying counties, who may find it tough to switch to other crops like vegetables. “I just don’t know what everyone’s going to do. It’s changed so much, it’s going to wipe some people out,” said Evans about the latest tobacco reduction. “Nothing is as easy to market,” said Rowell about tobacco growing. As tobacco is a dry product and the prices are set, growers deliver their product to a warehouse and collect a guaranteed price. Although growing vegetables and other crops can be as profitable as growing tobacco, it’s more management intensive with post harvest and direct marketing considerations and selling wholesale, Rowell said. With 300-400 years of tradition of growing tobacco in Kentucky, there’s interest in growing vegetables and other crops, but change has been slow. To help tobacco growers consider other alternatives, the University of Kentucky started a demonstration program. “We’ve been working with a half dozen or dozen tobacco growers where we take them step by step through vegetable production,” said Rowell. Through the program growers learn about using black plastic and drip irrigation. The university provides equipment that can be taken right to the farm for use. “The ones we work with are the ones who’ve asked for help. We can’t help all who want help,” said Rowell about growers looking at tobacco alternatives. Kentucky growers have had some success with growing peppers, tomatoes and also cantaloupe. As evidence of the growing interest in vegetables, three new small cooperatives for vegetables started about three years ago, including the Central Kentucky Vegetable Co-op that Evans belongs to with 25-30 growers this year. “We recently constructed a picking, grading and handling facility in Georgetown,” said Tim Woods, assistant Extension and marketing professor for the University of Kentucky. The facility for vegetables draws farmers from a five-county area. Mark Reese, an agricultural Extension agent in Scott County, said they are looking to double this 7,800 square foot building in the first concerted long scale effort with vegetables. “We started originally with pumpkins and moved into peppers and cabbages and just signed a contract for tomatoes,” Reese said. He said Scott County sits in a mecca for transporting crops and it’s many of the younger growers who are looking at diversifying right now as a lot of the area’s tobacco growers are older. A vegetable meeting for farmers in Richmond, Ky. attracted eight growers interested in diversifying into vegetables, according to Woods. Only one of the growers had previously been involved with vegetables, he said. “Vegetable and fruit production is a different animal,” Woods said. He said his area has had successes with growing vine ripe tomatoes, bell peppers and pumpkins. As over two-thirds of Kentucky’s tobacco farms are three acres or less, a lot of farmers grow tobacco as a side income, said Woods. He said it is the medium-size producers, with 15-20 acres of tobacco, who are looking the hardest at alternatives. “They have to generate income to keep their farm,” he said. In North Carolina researchers are looking at all sorts of alternatives to growing tobacco including carrots, fall harvested asparagus, specialty melons, seedless watermelon and lettuce, as well as peaches, greenhouse products and strawberries, according to Doug Sanders, Extension specialist and professor of vegetable crops for North Carolina State University (NCSU). “There’s not one silver bullet. We’re talking thousands of acres; nobody is looking at one single thing as a substitute,” he said. The acreage for tobacco, North Carolina’s largest crop, is about one-half of what was produced in 1997. Sanders said the price for tobacco in this country has continually gone up with time to a point where now there is a “disparity between our price and the world price,” he said. Sanders said he’s seen the number of apple orchards increase as well as the greenhouse and nursery industries in North Carolina. He said strawberries, watermelon and specialty melons have certainly picked up in the 1990s. Growers are also experimenting with broccoli and sweet onions. “It’s not just one thing, it’s a lot of different things. You have to replace income,” said Ed Estes, an ag economist for NCSU. “The biggest one with growth potential is nursery,” as many people are building new homes and retirement homes and want shrubs and other nursery products and Christmas trees. He said tobacco acreage fell in North Carolina from 325,000 acres in 1997 to 250,000 acres in 1998. “The risk is relatively modest compared to other crops,” Estes said. He said because tobacco is profitable, people are still going to grow tobacco as long as possible and he knows of tobacco growers who also might grow a few acres of strawberries. Bill Jester, a specialized agent in commercial vegetables in Kinston, in the central part of the coastal plains of North Carolina, has been working with growers for 12 years on growing alternatives to tobacco. “We’ve put up about six pre-cooling facilities in the last seven years,” Jester said. He is a part of the Southeast Growers Marketing Cooperative with 29 growers involved who sold produce last year. Jester said all 29 of these growers are also involved with tobacco in one way or another. “There is no crop that will replace tobacco with stability and income,” Jester said. He said he uses an approach with growers that they need to add income to retain the viability of their farming unit. He said research is being done on crops like off-season production of asparagus and a yellow and orange-flesh seedless watermelon. Many products are tested in the marketplace and in overseas markets.