Tobacco Farmers Go Organic

Sam Askins is a 54-year old farmer whose family has been raising tobacco in the Virginia Appalachians since 1786. “Growing ‘bacco is a bad habit,” he says with a chuckle as he adjusts his bright orange hunting cap. “So I quit.”

At at time of year when generations of local farmers usually gather in barns to bundle their cured tobacco for auction, Askins is working to rescue the last of his organic bell pepper crop from the coming frost. The peppers are bound for an Atlanta branch of Whole Foods Market.

“I used to get sicker than a dog with fever, burning skin, and nausea if I wasn’t real careful with the chemicals I sprayed on tobacco,” he says, as he goes on to describe the symptoms of nicotine poisoning from handling ripe tobacco plants. The other growers gathered here, all at least third generation tobacco farmers who have started raising organic vegetables, nod in agreement. “You don’t hear bullfrogs or toads anymore, because we poisoned the streams and creeks with our chemicals.”

The shift underway in this small southwest corner of a state world renowned for tobacco represents a trend throughout the nation, as farmers, beset by falling prices or eroding markets, switch to organic to protect their livelihood. Askins will receive $26 per 25-pound box of his organic bell peppers compared with $8 for a box of nonorganic peppers.

American sales of organic produce jumped from $750,000 in 1990 to more than $10 billion in 2002. The number of certified organic acres in the U.S. quadrupled between 1992 – 2001, although the land still accounts for just half a percent of all American cropland.

Like the national trends, the growth curve in this part of Appalachia, which spans Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina, is steep, but still relatively small. Growers there have converted about 500 acres to organic – about four times the area from just two years ago, but still only a small fraction of land in the tobacco belt.

“The financial return is very attractive,” says John Mullins, 35. Mullins has been around tobacco since he was a kid, but decided to raise Prudens Purple tomatoes, yellow Yukon potatoes and half a dozen other heirloom vegetables organically several years ago. He netted about $2500 from his best acre of tobacco this past season, while he cleared roughly $20,000 from a nearby acre of grape tomatoes. “Growing tobacco is like riding a dead horse,” he says.

A government-administered quota system that stabilized the price of tobacco and offered farmers a level of financial security unprecedented in agriculture collapsed in recent years as American cigarette makers use more cheap imported tobacco from exporters such as Turkey, Brazil and Zimbabwe. Today, an estimated half of the tobacco in a cigarette sold in the U.S. is foreign grown, according to USDA statistics.

But Appalachians remain bound to tobacco by history and habit. In 1995, a local nonprofit group, Appalachian Sustainable Development began helping tobacco growers raise and market organic vegetables. Only “a few back-to-the-landers, some hippies and one Amish family got on board,” according to farmer and the group’s director Anthony Flaccavento.

In 1999, the group started marketing its produce through a local supermarket chain, under the Appalachian Harvest label, an organic and regional designation intended to capitalize on the strong cultural identity of the area. “Farmers and their spouses began seeing the label when they shopped,” giving the work some legitimacy and piquing the interest of the “old boys” network of tobacco growers, according to Flaccavento.

The number of participating farmers increased to 25 in 2001 and then to 40 in 2002. Appalachian Harvest produce now appears in stores and restaurants throughout the area and as far north as Philadelphia. The group’s work is partly underwritten by money from the 1998 landmark settlement between state attorneys general and the tobacco industry, which set aside funding for each state to help farmers convert to other crops and businesses.

Change can seem slow, particularly when the average tobacco farmer in this area is in his or her 60s. But, Warren LaForce, 29, who farms 15 acres with his father suggests the emergence of some new local traditions. LaForce returned from a conference on sustainable agriculture brimming with ideas including mobile greenhouses, use of mushroom compost, and organic seedling production to supply local growers.

He noted that the most seasoned organic growers at the conference only had 10-15 years of experience, compared with local farmers with 50 years of tobacco growing experience. “When I’m my dad’s age,” he says, “I want to be the guru of organic vegetables.” LaForce has grown numerous organic vegetables for Appalachian Harvest for several years, and as his expertise grows, he shifts more and more of his family’s land permanently into organic production. “I got into organic for the money, but I’m staying with it, because it’s the right thing to do,” he says.

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Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project: www.asapconnections.org
Appalachian Sustainable Development: www.appsusdev.org

FROM E Magazine, a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner