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Feature Story
The County Times
Thursday, October 6, 2016
15 Years After State Buyout, Tobacco Farming Legacy Carries On By Dandan Zou & Guy Leonard Staff Writer Charles Cox is a seventh-generation tobacco farmer in his family and one of the few left in Calvert county. Back in 2001 when the state offered local farmers a buyout program, the Cox family didn’t participate because their tobacco yield was too small (between 10 to 15 acres), and the compensation was not enough for them to buy Spider Hall Farm in Barstow that they own now. At the time, Cox was only about 10. Now a 26-year-old and a graduate of Virginia Tech, Cox is in his third season growing tobacco in fields spread out along Route 231 in Hallowing Point. But the Cox family is a rare case among local tobacco farmers. By 2005, 854 out of 1023 farmers statewide accepted the state’s offer, and a majority of them were in Southern Maryland. Calvert accounted for one fourth of the total number: 195 farmers took the buyout. To the best of Cox’s knowledge, the Cox family farm and S.L. Brady’s farm are the only two farms left in Calvert that grow tobacco as of 2016.
For more than three centuries, tobacco sustained Maryland agriculture and decorated the Southern Maryland landscape with large, airy tobacco barns still visible today. The lasting impact of the state buyout, which issued its final payment to farmers in 2015, can still be felt throughout the farming community. “Farmers don’t unite like they used to,” said Buddy Hance, a local farmer who has 600 acres of farmland growing corn, wheat and soybeans in Port Republic. Before taking the buyout, Hance was a fourth generation tobacco farmer and grew tobacco all his life. “There are not many reasons for us to gather together now,” Hance said. Tobacco farmers used to meet and chat at annual auctions in the spring. Now under contract, farmers usually deliver the product to an appointed place, get the check and leave, often with little interaction with other farmers. Hance said he misses the socializing and the distinctive smell of tobacco leaves.
Photos by Frank Marquart
What he doesn’t miss is the hard work, Hance said. Growing tobacco is a laborintensive process because the crop must be cut, stored, hung and stripped all by hand. In long-term perspective, Hance thinks tobacco farming is not sustainable as land and labor costs keep rising. After all, farming is essentially a business. “There will come a point and time that there won’t be any tobacco left,” Hance said. When he took the buyout, the average age of tobacco farmers were about 60 years old and Hance said they didn’t see a future in tobacco. “Some would say that the state buyout expedited the decline of the tobacco industry,” Hance said. But he believed there was an upside to it. With guaranteed income for a decade, he said the buyout offered farmers “an opportunity to venture out new enterprises.” Using five percent of the state’s $2.6 billion settlement from major tobacco companies, the buyout program compensated tobacco farmers so that they could afford to try out farming alternatives to tobacco. The subsidy was calculated based on individual farm’s yield of the 1998 season at $1 per pound. In exchange, farmers could never grow tobacco again and were required to remain in agriculture throughout the 10 years. “It’s not just the tobacco; things change,” Hance said. For his generation, farmers grew the crops, sold them and that was all. Younger generations now need to figure out how to adjust to the new agricultural environment. And farmers can do it with some help from programs sponsored by the state through Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission. The commission was created to manage the buyout program and its continuing mission is to help farmers transition out of tobacco and promote diversified farming. Farmers are encouraged to branch out to grow organic produce, nursery crops and grapes for wine and explore agri-tourism. But some growers still make a go of it and reap the profits from an age old trade. The reason local farmers continue to grow tobacco may have little to do with nostalgia or preserving tradition; it’s because the plant is still one of the most profitable they could ever grow.
“We still grow about 2 million pounds a year in the region among about 100 growers,” said Ben Beale, an agricultural specialist with the local University of Maryland extension. “It’s not what we used to grow but it’s still a significant amount.” Between St. Mary’s, Charles, Calvert and Prince George’s counties, about threequarters of the farmers who still grow tobacco are located in St. Mary’s and many are in the Amish community, Beale said. The total sales of tobacco in the region are $4 million, Beale said. “It’s still profitable for them,” he said. As of 2005, the last year for farmers to sign up for the tobacco buyout program, St. Mary’s County was still the largest grower in the entire region, accounting for 3.1 million pounds of tobacco production. This counted for 34 percent of the total regional production, which was 7.6 million pounds. Jerry Spence is a local farmer who uses agriculture as a secondary source of income and has a relatively small crop of tobacco in Bushwood that he harvests for substantial profits. His grandfather was a tobacco farmer and he grew up at an early age harvesting the crop and learned what it took to make a living out of it. “You don’t need a lot of equipment and if you have a strong back you can do it,” Spence said. “Very rarely do you lose money on a crop, in fact I don’t think I ever have lost money on a crop.” Taking the money from the tobacco buyout did not make sense for Spence, he said, because he would qualify for only about $1,000 per acre. He could make more money continuing to grow tobacco. Other, much larger growers stood to benefit far more than he did. “It wasn’t economically feasible for me to take the buyout,” Spence said. “But for the larger growers getting paid $30,000 or $40,000 to do nothing is hard to pass up.” But growing tobacco is not for everyone, despite the continued promise of profits. “It’s a very labor-intensive crop,” Spence said, adding that the harvesting method for the plant is much the same as it was centuries ago where it must be pulled out of the ground and hung in a barn to be dried and cured.