The tobacco industry
History of tobacco in the United States
Production and Consumption
The general consensus is that the tobacco plant originated in South America and was spread by American Indians to North America and the South Pacific and Australia. The arrival of Europeans in the New World introduced them to tobacco, and by the early seventeenth century commercial tobacco became a driving force of colonization in North America and the Caribbean.
As a cash crop requiring very intensive labor from planting to harvesting to curing, its cultivation created a demand for conscripted labor, first in the form of indentured European servants on family farms and soon afterward in the form of African slave labor on large landholdings.
Two types of tobacco leaf were grown, principally for pipe smoking and, later on, snuff. They were both dark varieties: the more expensive leaf grown in Virginia and the stronger, cheaper orinoco leaf grown in Maryland.
In England, demand for tobacco rapidly grew and by 1628 the Chesapeake colonies exported 370,000 pounds annually to England, procuring substantial tax revenues for the state, which overcame early Crown hostility to tobacco cultivation and consumption. Tobacco farming spread quickly to North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. It also extended to two other regions in which cigar (Cuban) leaf cultivation would come to dominate in the nineteenth century: the Northeast (Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts) and, later, the Midwest (Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri).
In 1700 exports of raw leaf from the British Chesapeake colonies reached 37 million pounds and by the end of the eighteenth century already upward of 100 million pounds. The main producers of tobacco were the United States, Brazil, and Cuba.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the bulk of U.S. tobacco production had shifted away from low-lying areas of Maryland and Virginia to the Virginia–North Carolina Piedmont region and to Kentucky, where the bright and the burley varieties flourished. By 1919 bright accounted for 35% of the U.S. tobacco crop, burley for 45%.
After a decline following the American Revolution, U.S. production rebounded, but only slowly due to the Napoleonic Wars (1799 through 1815) and the War of 1812. Production then rose sharply to 434 million pounds in 1860 and, after a drop due to the Civil War, resumed its growth, averaging 660 million pounds in 1900 through 1905, of which one-half was used to supply domestic demand. From 1945 to the 1980s, U.S. annual production averaged two billion pounds.
Consumption and social aspects
Throughout most of their history, Americans overall and men in particular remained the heaviest consumers of tobacco worldwide, principally in the form of chewing and smoking tobacco. Europeans consumed tobacco by smoking it in clay pipes until the eighteenth century, when manufactured snuff became dominant starting in Spain. While chewing tobacco was rare in Europe, it was quite popular in the United States among men and remained so up to the early twentieth century. Pipe smoking was also popular among men and some women in the nineteenth century Women also used snuff. It was taken by New York society women and by women of all classes in the South. In Europe, pipe smoking made a comeback in the nineteenth century at the expense of snuff, but was soon forced to accommodate the new vogues for cigar and cigarette smoking popular both there and in North America. These shifts in consumption patterns stemmed in part from the development in the nineteenth century of new, lighter leaves of the bright and the burley varieties, which were more suitable for chewing and cigarette smoking and competed with the dark leaf grown in Virginia and Maryland.
Industrializing Tobacco and the Rise of the Cigarette
Until 1800 tobacco manufacturing proper was largely carried out in Europe. Initially, U.S. factories were dispersed in the tobacco-growing regions of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, which used slave labor. New York, a center of snuff production, was the exception. Manufacturing of tobacco also thrived among planters who prepared tobacco for chew. After the Civil War, the introduction of steam-powered shredding and cigarette machines and pressures stemming from the rise of national markets led to the concentration of tobacco manufacturing in that sector. Cigar manufacturing underwent a similar evolution somewhat later. Cigars first became popular in the United States after the Mexican-American War, and their manufacture was fairly dispersed in cigar leaf-growing regions. However, by 1905 the greatest centers of cigar manufacturing were Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, Baltimore, Richmond, Tampa, and Key West.
In the United States, the convenience and simplicity of smoking cigarettes made from the bright variety of tobacco was discovered by Union and Confederate troops alike during the Civil War. Ready-made cigarettes using mixtures of bright and burley tobacco allowed U.S. manufacturers to develop cheaper brands. U.S. cigarette production boomed between 1870 and 1880, rising from 16 million cigarettes (compared to 1.2 billion cigars) annually to over 533 million, reaching 26 billion by 1916. The growth of the U.S. population between 1880 and 1910 and the decline of chewing tobacco due to anti-spitting ordinances further expanded the market for cigarettes. With this growth arose new aggressive methods of packaging (striking colors, designs, logos, brand names), promoting (gifts, picture cards, free samples, discounts and rebates to jobbers, retailers, etc.), and advertising (newspapers, billboards, posters, handbills, endorsements) cigarettes to an emerging national market.
In 1881 James Bonsack patented a new cigarette-making machine that turned out over 120,000 cigarettes per day. Until then, factory workers rolled up to 3,000 cigarettes a day. The Bonsack machines made the fortune of James B. Duke, who adopted them in 1884. By securing exclusive rights over Bonsack machines and devoting 20% of his sales revenues to advertising, Duke helped create a mass national market, which he soon dominated. By 1889 W. Duke and Sons had become the world's leading manufacturer of cigarettes, with 40% of the U.S. market. That same year Duke pressured his rivals into forming the American Tobacco Company with Duke as president. The trust did not own any tobacco farms, and employed its considerable leverage to depress the price of tobacco leaf. This unequal relationship to the detriment of growers reached a crisis point forty years later during the Great Depression, necessitating the tobacco price support program of 1933—still in place at the end of the twentieth century—which rescued tobacco growers, many of them tenant farmers, from certain ruin. The trust also proceeded to absorb important rivals as well as manufacturers of chew, snuff, smoking tobacco, and cigars including R.J. Reynolds, P. Lorillard, Liggett and Myers, the American Snuff Company, and the American Cigar Company.
The geometric increase in cigarette production spurred the trust to make a major innovation in modern corporate practices: to seek outlets in foreign markets (not controlled by state monopolies), often by buying local companies outright (United Kingdom, Japan) and later by setting up factories abroad (China). American Tobacco Company's incursion into Britain provoked British companies to form a cartel, Imperial Tobacco. In turn, in 1902 Imperial Tobacco formed a joint company, but with minority interest, with American Tobacco called the British-American Tobacco Company (BAT). Together the U.S. and U.K. cartels exploited overseas markets while withdrawing from each other's domestic market. At the turn of the century, upward of one-third of the U.S. trust's cigarettes were exported and 54% or 1.2 billion were exported to China alone. By 1910, the year before its demise, the trust accounted for 75 percent of U.S. tobacco production of all kinds. In 1911, the Supreme Court found the American Tobacco Company in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered its breakup into four major companies: the American Tobacco Company, Liggett and Myers, R.J. Reynolds, and P. Lorillard.
In 1900 machine-made cigarettes still accounted for only 3 to 4 percent of U.S. tobacco leaf production. Their greatest growth lay ahead: by 1940 the figure had risen to 50 percent (or 189 billion cigarettes) and by 1970 to 80 percent (or 562 billion cigarettes). In 1913 the newly independent R.J. Reynolds launched Camels, the "first modern cigarette." An innovative blend of burley and Turkish tobacco backed by a massive publicity campaign, Camels were quickly imitated by American's Lucky Strike and Liggett and Myers' revamped Chesterfield cigarettes (in 1926 Lorillard jumped in with its Old Gold brand). All three brands stressed their mildness and catered their appeal to men and women alike. Between them the three brands enjoyed 65 to 80 percent market share through the 1940s. The 1920s saw the "conversion" of many tobacco consumers to the cigarette in the Unites States, United Kingdom, Europe, China, and Japan. Between 1920 and 1930, U.S. cigarette consumption doubled to approximately 1,370 cigarettes per capita.
Market Structure
Before learning how the tobacco market works, one must understand the roles of the major players in the market.
It is not uncommon for one person to fill more than one of the following roles. For instance, a farmer might also own a warehouse operation and have a dealer card.
The Major Players
1. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Service Agency (FSA)
The FSA is responsible for the execution of conservatory as well as regulatory farm laws in the United States, and is therefore a part of the USDA, which. It exists since the reorganization of the USDA in 1994.
2. Risk Management Agency (RMA), Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC)
The FCIC, which exists since 1938 and has become a division of the RMA when it was founded in 1996. It's is a quasi-government entity which sells insurance policies to insure a farmer's crop against loss due to bad weather, pests, disease, etc.
3. Stabilization Cooperative
A non-profit, producer-owned organization which stabilizes prices by purchasing tobacco from participating producers at a predetermined price when it does not receive such price at auction. The Co-op stores the tobacco for later resale.
4. Grower
The farmer who grows and cures tobacco. A farmer cannot sell controlled tobacco unless he or she has an allotment, and under FSA rules, can only sell his or her tobacco to or through a registered dealer or warehouse.
5. Warehouse
The place where the farmers' tobacco is usually sold at auction. The warehouse has limited space and only keeps the tobacco a few days until it is sold. Warehouses can purchase tobacco for their own account for resale, however, that is a small part of their total operation. Warehouses must file transaction reports with FSA and, should only buy and sell tobacco grown within quota limits. Each spring, a farmer must designate the warehouse(s) at which he or she will sell his or her tobacco.
6. Dealer
An individual who acts as a speculator by buying and reselling tobacco. Dealers can purchase directly from farmers, warehouses, or other dealers, at auction or nonauction, and sell to anyone who is authorized to buy. A dealer in quota controlled tobacco must have a dealer card issued by the ASCS and must file transaction reports with ASCS. In theory, the dealer would only be able to buy and sell tobacco grown within the quota limits.
7. Processor
A company which buys cured tobacco and prepares leaf for shipment to domestic or foreign manufacturers.
8. Manufacturer
Generally a large corporation that purchases tobacco for manufacturing and processing into products.
How the Market Should Work
At the beginning of the tobacco season, each grower of flue-cured tobacco is notified by the ASCS of his or her acreage allotment and quota for the season. The farmer then grows and cures his or her crop. The crop is taken by truckloads to the warehouse where it is weighed and graded in smaller lots of about 300 pounds each.
Since the crop does not all mature at the same time, it is taken in batches throughout the sales season, generally from late July through October in North Carolina and Virginia. The tobacco is sold at auction by the warehouse. The buyer, usually a processor or manufacturer, pays the warehouse and the warehouse pays the farmer after deducting certain fees and a commission. If the farmer still has unsold tobacco after his or her cumulative sales for the season have reached 103 percent of his or her quota, the farmer has the choices of:
1. Destroying the excess
2. Selling the excess with a penalty, which can be 75 percent of the market price of tobacco, and reducing next year's quota
3. Taking the excess back to the farm to store until next year, then selling against next year's quota.
None of these alternatives are particularly good for the farmer, however, if he or she has adequate storage space, holding the excess until next year is the better choice because it can be sold for full value at that time. A fourth but illegal alternative is to sell the excess on the black market.
If the buyer is a dealer, he or she, having no ability to store tobacco, would try to resell it quickly, either at the same warehouse where it was purchased or by trucking it to another warehouse. The dealer, therefore is merely a speculator or middleman, and in legitimate transactions, his or her profit margin would probably be small.
Warehouses are required by ASCS to make payment to the seller by check on the day of the sale. Dealers are not required to pay for purchases by check and often deal in large amounts of cash.
Government regulation of the tobacco industry
The USDA, through the ASCS, administers production and price support programs for the various kinds of tobacco. The purpose of the tobacco program is to:
1. Ensure that supply is consistent with anticipated demand
2. Provide an orderly market
3. Guarantee the farmer a fair price.
Most types of tobacco are regulated. The most common type, flue-cured, is monitored more closely than burley tobacco. Every 3 years the Secretary of Agriculture holds a national referendum of tobacco farmers to determine if most are in favor of continuing marketing quotas for the types of tobacco under marketing quotas.
If two-thirds of the eligible producers respond favorably for marketing quotas and price support, then both are in effect for the next 3 years. The secretary annually sets the quota based on expected demand and exports.
Each participant, from the field to the factory, operates under varying degrees of Government regulation. Although the crop year of a farmer runs from the spring when the plants are set out in the field, until July through October when the leaves are harvested and cured, the season starts in January when the county ASCS office notifies the farmer of the allotment and quota that has been determined for his or her land that year. Allotment runs with the land.
Quota is the number of pounds that can be marketed from the tobacco grown on the designated acreage allotment. By April 15, the producer must designate the warehouse, or warehouses, where he or she will sell his or her tobacco and he or she lists the number of pounds of his or her allotment that he or she intends to sell at each designated warehouse.
Each spring the farmer must visit the county ASCS office and certify how many acres are planted. ASCS then measures the acreage on each farm to ensure compliance. In earlier years this was done by an individual actually measuring the land with chains, while presently the land is measured from aerial photographs.
The ASCS office issues marketing cards (similar to a credit card) that identifies the farm, operator, and pounds available to sell. The marketing card is brought to the warehouse and presented prior to the auction. Each sales invoice is imprinted with the card
at the time the tobacco is weighed. On the bill there is a record of how much tobacco was weighed in, number of pounds sold, price per pound, and the purchaser's name. If the tobacco goes to stabilization, this is likewise noted on the sales invoice. The marketing card remains in the possession of the warehouse until
the farmer is issued a check for the pounds sold that day at the warehouse. The balance of pounds that can be sold at each warehouse is noted on the card after each sale. At the end of the marketing period the card is returned to the ASCS where the sales are reconciled.
The warehouse is likewise regulated by the Department of Agriculture and its agencies. Tobacco, placed on burlap sheets on the warehouse floor in piles of about 300 pounds, is graded by employees of the Agricultural Marketing Service. Graders consider the leaves' color, place on the stalk, length, and quality. The warehouse operator allocates the selling time on his or her floor
between farmers and dealers.
After each day's sales he or she must report sales to the ASCS, issue checks to producers and bill the buyers. Generally the tobacco buyer is a processor or manufacturer, but it could be a
dealer, another warehouse, or the stabilization cooperative.
Each year, a dealer must apply for and be issued a dealer card from ASCS. A dealer can buy tobacco from a warehouse, another dealer, or directly from the farm. The dealer is limited to selling only as many pounds as he or she has already purchased. He or she cannot sell "short" as a stockbroker can. The dealer must report his or her purchases and sales weekly to the ASCS
office, using Form MQ-79. The warehouse daily sales report, Form MQ-80, is reconciled with the Form MQ-79 reports of the dealer by the ASCS office.
A support price is established each year by USDA based on a formula that takes into account intended purchases by manufacturers, the unmanufactured exports and the reserve stock. If tobacco does not attain the support price at auction it then goes to stabilization. This in essence means that it is being reserved for the future. However, the producer is paid on the spot by means of a loan from the Government owned and operated
Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) which loans money to farmer-owned associations.
Interest is paid on the loans by the association out of fees paid by both farmers and processors into a "no net cost" account maintained by the Board of Stabilization. Legislation enacted in 1982 has effectively established the price support program with no cost to the American taxpayer. The assessment and collection of funds deposited into the no net cost account has guaranteed that there will be no net losses on the sales of tobacco held in storage by the association.
To date, there has never been a loss from stored tobacco including interest paid to CCC. This aspect of the support system is generally misunderstood by the public and commonly thought to be
the Government paying farmers for the production of tobacco.
The Government regulations, quota, and allotment systems create strong incentives for a farmer who has production in excess of his or her quota to dispose of this excess on the black market because the penalties are so severe. The penalty for selling excess tobacco grown over quota is 75 percent of the market price of
the tobacco. For example, if a farmer has 10,000 pounds of excess tobacco and the current market price is $1.70 per pound, the penalty for selling the excess tobacco grown is $12,750 (10,000 x 1.70 x .75). The farmer would receive $4,250 for the 10,000
pounds sold and would also have his or he next year's allotment reduced.
Due to enhanced agricultural equipment and increase experience in harvesting tobacco, farmers are able to grow substantially more
tobacco per allotted acre than the quota established by ASCS. With the excess tobacco grown, farmers may decide to store the excess for sale the next year or sell the excess at the substantial penalty. As a result, a black market emerged.
Tobacco farming and tobacco control in the United States
The ability of tobacco to remain a stable, profitable commodity is uncertain. As the demand for US-grown tobacco dwindles, both domestically and internationally, and US smoking rates continue to decline, tobacco may not be a viable crop in the near future. Many farmers are now looking to diversify their crops. Unfortunately, there are many barriers to diver- sification. This has put farmers in what is a diÅcult position financially, but interesting hilosophically.
Farmers are rethinking their needs and traditional allegiance to the cigarette industry. Although farmers have long been a strong counter force to tobacco control measures, they have recently begun forming close alliances with the public health community. Tobacco farmers and tobacco control advocates are discovering that they can help each other. These new alliances will be important to the future success of tobacco control. In the US, two main types of tobacco are grown, flue- cured and burley. Both types are used in cigarette production. However, there are diÄerences in flue-cured
and burley farms. Technological advances and mechanization have enabled flue-cure tobacco farms to increase in acreage. On the other hand, burley tobacco farms are still rather small. The harvesting and curing of burley tobacco is more diÅcult to mechanize and remains labor intensive. In addition, the topography of the two major burley producing states, Kentucky and Tennessee, limits the size of farms [2]. For example, burley farms in Tennessee average 4 acres of tobacco, while flue-cured farms in South Carolina average 43 acres [2]. This diÄerence in size aÄects the annual income derived from tobacco in these states, with the average Tennessee and Kentucky farm bringing in $12,000 compared to the average tobacco farm in Georgia bringing in $121,000 [2, 3]. Although farm size and income vary, tobacco farmers have similar demographic characteristics (most are white males living in rural areas in the southern states) [4]. However, divisions lie between older and younger farmers. Surprisingly, the average age of tobacco farmers is 53 years, and almost one-fourth (24%) are 65 years or older [2]. About one-third of farmers are under 45 years of age [2].
Among these younger farmers, most believe that smok-ing is harmful and are interested in diversifying their crops [4]. This is not true among the older farmers [4]. Younger farmers have become disenchanted with tobacco companies and feel the industry no longer cares about them. Older farmers tend to look more favorably upon the industry [4].
Nonetheless, farmers of all ages agree that the US cigarette industry's shift to the purchase of foreign tobacco may drive them out of business. Even among older farmers, uncertainty about the future prevails, and they are not advising younger generations of farmers to grow tobacco [4].
Farmers have good reason to be concerned. Between 1998 and 1999, US exports of tobacco declined 11% to a record low of 189,000 metric tons. At the same time, imports of flue-cured tobacco increased 95%, and imports of burley tobacco increased 50% [5]. This situation has caused tremendous changes in the extent of tobacco farming in the US. Notably, the number of tobacco farms in the US has diminished greatly over the past several decades. Since 1954, the number of farms has decreased more than 80% [2]. Much of this drop has been in recent years. Between 1992 and 1997, the number of farms decreased 27%. In North Carolina alone, the number of farms has decreased from 150,000 to 12,100 [2]. At the same time, the remaining farms are increasing in size [2]. It appears that in the future, most tobacco in
the US will be grown on fewer, larger farms. During the 1930's, government controls on both the supply and price of tobacco were established to stabilize prices [6].
Tobacco farmers still operate under a similar price support system in the year 2000. To secure the price of tobacco, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) establishes a tobacco quota each year, which is the amount a farmer can legally grow [7]. Quotas are determined by a formula that *******s the cigarette industry's domestic demand and the amount of tobacco sold in previous years. By limiting the amount of tobacco available on the market, the USDA can set a minimum price level for each quality grade of tobacco [7, 8]. From 1997 to 1999, US cigarette companies reduced the amount of US tobacco purchased by 35% [9]. Due to decreasing demand by these companies, USDA quotas for 2000 decreased 18% from 1999 [10].
US cigarette companies now manufacture cigarettes in more than 100 countries [9]. This has had a major eÄect on the amount of US tobacco they need. The US farmer is forced into a diÅcult situation. While the price support system guarantees a minimum price in the US, farmers are unable to compete with lower foreign prices outside the US. Hence, their international market share has been reduced by 50% over the past 20 years [9].
In March 2000, Philip Morris announced that it had established a contract system for purchasing burley tobacco [11, 12]. Under contract conditions, farmers would sell their tobacco directly to Philip Morris instead of at auction [11, 12]. Many farmers and farmer cooperatives are very much against a contract system because it oÄers little protection and has potential risks for farmers [12]. Although farmers would be guaranteed a buyer, there is concern about the potential negative consequences of a contract system. First, growers may receive a lower price for their tobacco under the contract than they would at auction because negotiations would occur before the USDA set a minimum price [12].
Additionally, if the cigarette industry satisfies much of its demand through contracts, the governmental price support system may be undermined, and this could hurt farmers by lowering quota and price levels [11]. It is important to note that burley quotas are already in rapid decline. Burley farmers were hit particularly hard in 2000, with a 45% quota reduction [10]. A final concern is that farmers may lose some independence as companies begin to dictate how tobacco should be farmed and cured [13, 14]. Nevertheless, the contract system is well underway. In 2000, Philip Morris contracted approximately 20% of the tobacco grown in Missouri. This could increase to more than 40% in 2001 [15]. Other tobacco companies, such as Brown & Williamson, have stated that they do not agree with contract systems [16]. However, these companies may be forced to adopt contract systems in order to remain competitive. Because contracts appear to favor the cigarette industry, not the tobacco farmer, several states are attempting to protect farmers from the potential ill eÄects of such a system. In April 2000, Kentucky enacted legislation that (a) requires those who purchase tobacco directly from farmers to notify a state commission, (b) provides for model contracts to be made available to farmers, and (c) voids any contract that undermines the USDA price support system [17]. Other legislative eÄorts have been attempted to protect the tobacco farmer from changes in the industry.
In 1993, federal legislation was enacted mandating that all US cigarettes contain at least 75% US tobacco [6].
However, in 1995, new legislation that imposed certain limitations on imported tobacco replaced this requirement [6]. Much to the US tobacco farmers' dismay, this new legislation increased the amount of tobacco imported into the US [6]. Currently, US-manufactured cigarettes contain one-third less US tobacco than those produced in the early 1970's [9]. This translates into dollars for the farmer. Previously, farmers received about 7 cents for every domestic dollar spent on cigarettes; now they earn about 2 cents for every dollar [9].
As cigarette manufacturers increase their reliance on imported tobacco and price competition in world marketplaces persists, the future looks grim for American tobacco production.
In December 1999, tobacco farmers filed a class-action suit against cigarette manufacturers [18, 19]. The suit alleges the manufacturers misled farmers when they encouraged the farmers to oppose legislation that would have removed the current quota system, and in return, provided farmers with $28 billion in compensation under provisions of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA).
According to the farmers, the cigarette manufacturers assured them that they would benefit more from the MSA without congressional interference [20]. Early in the negotiations, the cigarette companies were supportive of money to be earmarked in the MSA for tobacco farmers. However, in the final version of the MSA, tobacco farmers ended up with only $5.15 billion over a 12-year period [21]. Several tobacco-growing states, such as Kentucky, have allocated funds from their first-year MSA payments for tobacco farmers to diversify [22, 23].
With trust in the cigarette industry diminished, farmers are relying on the justice system, state legislatures, and tobacco control advocates to help them survive.
Several organizations, such as The Tobacco Communities Project in North Carolina, oÄer funding in the form of small grants to farmers for diversification expenses [24, 25]. These funds have been used for such enterprises as greenhouse vegetable production, grain storage, horse boarding and training, and fish hatcheries [24, 25]. These organizations want to ensure that communities in rural America remain intact. Since many rural communities in the US depend on revenues from these farmers, attention needs to focus on viable alternatives for the farmers. Unfortunately for many small farmers, diversification may mean that farming is no longer viable as a part-time or full-time career [26].
Out of the many problems facing tobacco farmers, an intriguing alliance has formed with tobacco control advocates. Although farmers were once major opponents to any tobacco control legislation, they are finding that reducing smoking does not necessarily put them out of business. In fact, it can keep them in business. For example, the state of Maryland increased cigarette taxes in order to reduce smoking and allocated a portion of the proceeds to tobacco farm diversification [27]. In this case, health advocates and farmers are both winners.
The University of Virginia's Southern Tobacco Community Project is one such coalition that brings together tobacco growers and health care advocates to discuss issues such as MSA funding, FDA regulation, and community development [28, 29]. On a national and global scale, the American Public Health Association and the United Nations are working with tobacco farmers to find solutions to diversification barriers [30].
The United Nations Ad Hoc Interagency Task Force on Tobacco Control is meeting with growers to discuss alternatives to tobacco farming, as well as the use of tobacco for biotechnological products instead of cigarettes [30].
As demand for US tobacco continues to decline, it is likely that only a few, large tobacco farms will be able to survive. Most tobacco farmers will be forced to diversify their crops or move into other lines of business.
Fortunately, many organizations are increasing opportunities for farmers to transition to other types of enterprises. In addition, farmers are forming coalitions with tobacco control advocates to support policies that can not only reduce smoking prevalence, but also provide funding to support farmers' diversification activities. Supporting legislation and MSA allocations that aid diversification ensures that farming communities may continue to thrive without an industry that is hazardous to health.