The Change Mariner

Ex-tobacco farmers kick the habit and go organic

Environmental Magazine

From the outside, this looks like any other barn tucked into a sleepy mountain hollow of Stickleyville, Virginia in the Appalachians. Rows of tobacco plants skewered on wooden poles hang like dry-cleaning from the rafters while all around the hillsides explode with autumn colors, which mirror the tints of lemon, orange and mahogany in the cured tobacco.

But inside this barn a revolution is brewing. Among the unlikely pioneers is Sam Askins, a 54-year-old farmer, whose family has been raising tobacco in nearby Russell County since 1786. “Growing ’bacco is a bad habit,” Askins says with a chuckle as he adjusts his bright orange hunting cap. “So I quit.”

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

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