Market Farming

[sunnfarm AT netscape.net]

The tobacco industry in the mid Atlantic area is now almost exclusively in 
the hands of the Amish they are the only farmers who did not take the buyout 
program.
There has been a difference of opinion about the use of manure in tobacco 
production, Lancaster PA growers use dairy manure, Marlboro Maryland area 
growers use chemical fertilizer, 6-12-18, its specially mixed to keep 
chlorine/ammonia low and sulfur/nitrate high making a better quality tobacco. 
Buyers say they can taste and smell the "essence of dairy cow", in Lancaster 
tobacco. This could be just a competitive thing between the two type 609 
tobacco producing areas.

A lesson for small farmers to be found in tobacco is the importance of 
working together, every year at tobacco sales time,you hve tobacco buyers who 
would come up from the south or from Europe, Swiss are big buyers of 
tobacco,and they would make private deals with farmers and attempt to fix a 
local price that favored the buyer as a way to defeat the auction system.
Auctions would put adds in the newspaper telling farmers to join together at 
the auction and work for higher prices.

Tobacco is probably one of the best labor intensive family farm crops there 
ever was, to bad the stuff is toxic smelly and almost always deadly. The 
allotment system made room for small growers. There is an art to producing a 
quality leaf and every year competitions are held and awards are given out to 
the best leaf growers.

I heard that one $4000 acre of tobacco yields $40000 in government taxes, 
this must be the only crop in the world where farms subsidize the government.

I hear that old worn  tobacco lathe, the sticks that tobacco is hung on in 
drying barns are being turned into pricy walking sticks sold at upscale 
shopping centers...Bob.
Sunny Meadow Farm
Bridgeton, NJ.



__________________________________________________________________
The NEW Netscape 7.0 browser is now available. Upgrade now! 
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp 

Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Mail account today at 
http://webmail.netscape.com/