The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.13           April 5, 1999 
 
 
Tobacco Farmers Demand Their Share  

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Five hundred tobacco farmers drove their tractors through downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, March 1 to demand that they receive half of the state's $4.6 billion settlement with cigarette companies. This action, and the ensuing fight in the state legislature, points to the growing militancy of these toilers on the land.

"The tobacco farmers in this state have been caught in a terrible situation through no fault of their own," stated Claude Neal, who plans to grow 55 acres of tobacco this year on his farm near Henderson, North Carolina. "If we don't get some help around here there will be a lot of farmers who won't be able to make land and tractor payments."

There are about 13,000 tobacco farmers in North Carolina, which is the nation's top tobacco-growing state. Over the past two years, these farmers have seen their income cut 35 percent as a result of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) decreasing the amount of tobacco leaf that they are permitted to grow. "I don't know a lot of people who could take a 35 percent cut in their incomes and not end up hurting," pointed out Jimmy Lee, a Johnston County tobacco farmer who helped organize the March 1 tractorcade.

Unlike the production of many other crops, tobacco farmers are assigned a quota, essentially a government license to grow and sell a specified percentage of the national tobacco crop. This program is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which doles out annual allotments before the start of each growing season based on estimates of the coming year's demand. In 1998, tobacco quotas for farmers in North Carolina were slashed 18 percent, on top of a 17 percent reduction the year before.

When the federal tobacco program was first started in the 1930s, specific quotas were assigned to farms. Over the past six decades these have been sold or passed on to other family members so that today very few of the quota owners actually grow tobacco. In North Carolina there are some 82,600 individuals or businesses that own or co-own quotas. They include more than a dozen state legislators, a member of the Rockefeller family, and other wealthy businessmen. Because nonfarmers control so much of the quota, many growers must rent or sharecrop much of the quota they need each year. Rentals run around 35 to 40 cents a pound, on top of farmers' other costs of production. In order to help make ends meet, tobacco farmers have been demanding that the state legislature allocate to them in the form of direct payments half of the $4.6 billion settlement assigned to North Carolina as part of the 1997 national tobacco settlement in which the cigarette bosses agreed to pay $368.5 billion over 25 years.

Instead, the state legislature passed a bill on March 16 channeling half the state's share of this settlement into a charitable foundation and the rest to be split between two trust funds, one for tobacco farmers and quota holders and another for health programs. Each of these funds gets a quarter of the settlement, roughly $1.15 billion. Many farmers, who packed the public hearings on this bill were disappointed about the outcome.

"They're setting up a board and selecting people to be in charge of dispersing the trust funds," commented Neal. "But who is better able to disperse this money in farm communities than the farmer?"

"I don't think they [the legislators] realize the seriousness of this thing," said Kenneth Talton, a tobacco farmer from Johnston County. "I don't think 25 percent will go very far. I don't think that's much help. There's no group that's hurt like the tobacco farmer."

In addition, a separate nonbinding agreement with major cigarette firms sets up a $5.15 billion private trust fund supposedly to compensate tobacco farmers and allotment holders, many of whom are wealthy businessmen living off the farm. About $2 billion of this is projected to be paid in North Carolina over the next 12 years. However, many of the state's tobacco farmers never expect to see any of this money. "My bank isn't going to want to hear about a trust fund," stated Dale Lucas, a Harnett county tobacco farmer. "We need something more secure than that when we go to get the money we need to run our farms."

Brian Williams is a member of the United Steelworkers of America.

 
 
 
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