Burley leaf gets towed away from a field in the Western North Carolina mountains last fall. But the grower isn't planning on letting his burley get towed away permanently. See story below. Photo courtesy of NCDA.
Burley farms are down to one in one mountain county…but the one farmer there plans to stay in tobacco indefinitely. There used to be a significant number of burley growers in Mitchell County, N.C., in the mountains close to Tennessee. But this season there is only one, Stonbach Farms owner Conner Stonbach. That would seem to suggest burley will disappear before too long, but Conner who is in his 20s, says don’t count on it. He plans to maintain burley tobacco in the family tradition and heritage. “It is important to our past and should always be kept in our future. Tobacco is a huge source of pride and historical significance for us, because not only was it what this state was built on, but it changed the way of life for many families, including mine.” True, tobacco can be a tough industry to suceed in. “It relies heavily on the market and all comes down to the 30 or 60 minutes,” he says. “But seeing buyers come through and purchase your product is the best feeling in the world.”
Burley auctions ended this week with cleanup sales in the two warehouses of Danville, Ky., and Lexington, Ky. Jerry Rankin, owner of Farmers Tobacco Warehouse in Danville, said that for the season, most of the crop sold for a strong $1.80 to $1.85. He estimated that volume for the total burley crop (all states) will be at least 42 million pounds and perhaps as much as 45 million pounds, which is roughly what he foresaw a month ago. The quality was very good. “On my farm, the quality was the best in three or four years,” he said. The difference from recent markets was there just wasn’t as much low quality leaf as you would expect, so that even though there was less good leaf than you would expect, it still made up a large portion of the total…Big Burley Warehouse in Lexington, Ky., was the other burley warehouse which closed this week.
An early production projection: Flue-cured production in the U.S. in 2021 should rebound to over 300 million pounds, said Blake Brown, N.C. Extension economist. That is up from NASS’ estimate of 234 million pounds in the season just ended. An amount contracted to the Chinese in the range of 85 million pounds figures into that. But note that contracts with Chinese have to be approved back at home and could fall through. But an official extremely familiar with selling tobacco to China believes 95 percent of these contracts should eventually go into effect.
You can still apply for the Quality Loss Adjustment Program: If you missed the March 5 deadline to apply for the USDA’s Quality Loss Adjustment (QLA) Program, there is still time. Because of storms and some clarifications to program rules, a deadline extension to August 9 was considered appropriate. QLA assists producers who suffered crop quality losses due to qualifying 2018 and 2019 natural disasters. “Because of recent winter storms and some program updates, we want to provide five additional weeks for producers to apply for the program,” said Zach Ducheneaux, administrator of the Farm Service Agency. “FSA began accepting applications on January 6 and has received more than 8,100 applications so far. Additional information is available at farmers.gov/quality-loss or by calling 877-508-8364.
EU aircraft tariff restrictions down temporarily. The European Union and the United States have agreed to suspend for four months tariffs related to a long-running World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute over tariffs on aircraft. The suspension will cover all tariffs both on aircraft as well as on non-aircraft products, which include tobacco and sweet potatoes, and will become effective as soon as the internal procedures on both sides are completed.
Price picture brightens for dark: A major buyer of dark air-cured and dark fire cured tobacco in Kentucky and Tennessee has revealed its contract prices for the coming crop. Fire-cured, which is more expensive to produce, will be contracted for a top price of $2.82, while dark air-cured will be contracted for a top price of $2.50. Both prices are about five cents above last year.
REPORT FROM OVERSEAS
Global tobacco production has shifted from high-income countries to developing market nations over the past decade. Global plantings are reported to have decreased by 15.7 percent, according to statistics from a recent World Health Organization global report, while in Africa the registered growth is 3.4 percent. Regarding the volume of production, global decline is 13.9 percent, but in Africa, there has 10.6 percent growth. The study also highlights the biggest tobacco growing countries in the continent: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique.
Among our leading foreign competitors:
- In Zimbabwe, look for a larger and better quality crop than last season thanks to adequate rainfall so far this season, to the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB) of Zimbabwe. The marketing season traditionally starts in March but could be delayed because of coronavirus restrictions. Hopefully, the market disruption will not be as great as last season, when pandemic control methods largely prevented farmers from attending the auction floors in person. But some form of those methods will have to be continued since COVID 19 is a bigger problem now than it was in 2020.
- In Brazil, the big tobacco-producing state of Rio Grande do Sul is currently marketing its flue-cured, which is its leading type. According to local producers, the crop quality is better than last year.
- Don’t expect Malawi to abandon tobacco anytime soon. “The country is yet to identify a competitive crop or another best alternative to tobacco,” said Hellings Nasoni of the Malawi Tobacco Commission. “Until we reach that stage--where we shall have an alternative crop--that will be raking in much foreign exchange as tobacco, we will still be relying on tobacco.”
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