Tobacco outlook is strong

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GINA KINSLOW

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September 15, 2008

By GINA KINSLOW The Glasgow Daily Times Mon Sep 15, 2008, 09:56 AM CDT

GLASGOW — Agriculture officials say this year’s burley tobacco crop will be a good one.

The weather plays a huge role in crop production, said Gary Tilghman, a University of Kentucky Extension Agent for Barren County.

“Early rains have really made it grow,” he said. “It’s been a good crop year to this point.”

Dry weather later in the summer also helped decrease the likelihood of disease, such as blue mold, he said.

Barren County still ranks top in the state for burley tobacco production, even though there aren’t as many farmers growing tobacco as there has been in the past.

However, the number of tobacco farmers is starting to steadily increase, but they aren’t relying solely on tobacco as a source of income as they once did. Farmers are growing tobacco along with other crops.

“Some folks like to have that other crop on the farm,” Tilghman said.

Gary Botts of Barren County grew up raising tobacco. He raised the crop with his father, and then on his own for 25 years after his father died.

“We’ve been doing it for a long time,” Botts said.

He stopped raising tobacco after the tobacco buyout.

In 2007, he decided to give tobacco one more try and planted a three-acre crop.

“I missed that income at the end of the year and we decided we were just going to get back into it,” he said.

This year, he is raising six acres.

The cost of producing tobacco plays a huge role in how much he raises. Botts said fertilizer, chemicals, fuel and labor used in tobacco production are expensive.

“There are just a lot of factors this year that are going to cost us more money on this crop,” he said.

How much he earns from his small tobacco crop will determine whether or not he will grow another crop next year.

“I’m going to look at it on a year-to-year basis,” he said. “It will depend on the market and whether or not they want to buy from us. It just costs a lot more to raise a crop.”

Tobacco is not Botts’ only source of income. He also works as an agriculture pharmaceutical salesman and raises beef cattle and hay.

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