US Tobacco Farmers Consider Giving Up Crop Limits and Price Supports [08/20-3]
Excerpts from: Tobacco Growers Consider Giving Up Price Supports
By CARL HULSE NY
TIMES [08/20/03]
With foreign competition increasing and their income falling steadily, tobacco
farmers along with the senators from tobacco country say they are prepared to
do something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago: give up
the government crop limits and price supports they have enjoyed since the Depression.
In what could be a turning point for the government's role in tobacco production,
many pivotal senators have joined with farmers to press for a buyout of tobacco
quotas by the industry, ending the federal program that determines who can grow
tobacco and how much they can sell. In return, the Food and Drug Administration
would gain the authority to regulate tobacco products under a legislative plan
that Congress will consider this fall. That would give the agency power it sought
in 1996 only to have the Supreme Court rule that it had exceeded its authority.
Joined by senators from Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and
Virginia, Mr. McConnell and his fellow Kentuckian Jim Bunning in late July introduced
a $13 billion proposal to retire the vestiges of the program created seven decades
ago to fix the tobacco supply and guarantee a minimum price. The buyout money,
to be paid over six years, would be tied to the prices paid for tobacco last year
and come from an assessment on importers and domestic manufacturers of tobacco
products.
Senator Elizabeth Dole, Republican of North Carolina, another chief sponsor of
the measure, has estimated that the amount of tobacco allowed to be grown has
been cut by 50 percent over the past six years.
"We've got a lot of farmers, if it doesn't happen this year, they will
be bankrupt," said Brian L. Furnish, director of government relations for
the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association in Lexington, Ky.
He estimated that under the buyout, tobacco growers in Kentucky would get an
average of less than $7,500 a year compared with $10,000 annually that producers
of other crops get under farm subsidies, though some large tobacco farmers and
holders of tobacco quotas would receive substantially more.
A large segment of the tobacco industry says that if the proposed buyout does
happen, the industry will face serious financial troubles.
This information is presented as a public service by:
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2013 H Street NW / Washington, DC 20006 / (202) 659-4310
A national nonprofit, scientific and educational organization founded in 1967.
All donations are fully tax deductible.
Material on this page may be freely reproduced, distributed, and circulated
with attribution given to Action on Smoking and Health.
Dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Warren Wells