Phillip Morris makes a tobacco comeback in Georgia:

Phillip Morris USA signed contracts with a number of Type 14 tobacco growers this year after signing no new contracts in 2010. The tobacco, all flue-cured, will be delivered to a buying station in Moultrie, Ga. The contract price will reportedly be 10 cents less per pound than that for other PMUSA growers. There is no report now as to how many new pounds have been committed to PMUSA, but J. Michael Moore, Georgia Extension tobacco specialist, said the new company U.S. Growers Direct has contracted for as much as 15 million pounds. Moore is holding to his earlier estimate (see May Crop Report below, May 2) of Georgia/Florida of plantings at 14,000 acres, which would be 2,000 acres more than last year and about 5,000 acres more than had been expected from this crop before the two companies made these moves. "Growers were very much ready to use their barns, equipment, land and know-how, and [they] jumped on the contracts," Moore said.


For more information, go to http://georgiafaces.caes.uga.edu/?public=viewStory&pk_id=4113.