[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 105 (Wednesday, August 3, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    TOBACCO, A LABOR-INTENSIVE CROP

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, back in February and March, when most of us 
were cursing the cold weather, Kentucky tobacco farmers were already 
putting into motion the cycle of planting, setting, cutting, and curing 
that has occurred for hundreds of years.
  Tobacco is a labor intensive crop. As Kentucky writer and farmer 
Wendell Berry put it, that is because it is a ``handmade crop; between 
plantbed and warehouse, every plant, every leaf, was looked at, touched 
and appraised, lifted and carried many times.''
  Because the seeds are so small--over 300,000 seeds to an ounce--
farmers first plant them in beds or nurseries to produce seedlings 
large enough for transplanting.
  Up until about 4 years ago, most tobacco farmers in Kentucky grew 
their burley plants in traditional seedbeds outside. Now, nearly 50 
percent of Kentucky burley is started in greenhouses.
  One Shelby County farmer told the Louisville Courier Journal that 
before they started using greenhouses, ``It used to take 10 or 12 
people working all day pulling plants out of the bed before you would 
have enough plants to set five acres. We'd start at 6 or 7 in the 
morning and work till 3 in the afternoon. Then you would transplant 
until dark.''
  But as Courier Journal farm writer, Greg Otolski, explains, it is 
still not an easy way to go. ``At 7:10 p.m., 11 hours after they began, 
the 6.5 acres are planted and the machinery is taken back to the barn 
to be cleaned. Muscles ached and the skin on the ears and back of the 
neck stung from being burned by the sun, but the next day they got up 
and did it all again, because it is their way of life.''
  The Sun has been rising and setting on tobacco farmers working in the 
field for centuries. And it is that history, as much as the financial 
rewards, that policymakers must try and understand.
  The culture of tobacco is ingrained in the history of grower States 
just as surely as the culture of automakers in the rustbelt, of 
fishermen along this Nation's coastlines, or oil drillers in the 
Southwest and of lumberjacks in the North.
  That history began long before 1612, when James Rolfe started the 
commercial cultivation of tobacco in Virginia's Jamestown colony. In 
fact, one source writes ``there is evidence that tobacco had once been 
abundantly cultivated long before the dawn of history. Excavated mounds 
built by stone age inhabitants yielded a wealth of pipes to indicate 
that tobacco had been an intimate part of the ceremonial and social 
life of a long-forgotten people.
  And less than a century after Christopher Columbus found native 
Indians cultivating tobacco using many of the same practices still 
considered essential today--from topping to curing--tobacco had 
journeyed around the globe, becoming the economic foundation for the 
Colonies.
  The leaf itself became currency, with Benjamin Franklin using it for 
collateral for loans extended by France to finance the Revolutionary 
War.
  Eventually, tobacco cultivation became more sophisticated, and new 
types were developed. Dark types were suitable for Virginia, western 
Kentucky, and Tennessee soil, while the bright types were for the 
Carolinas, the bluegrass regions of Kentucky and Tennessee. The dark 
tobacco is often referred to as ``black patch'' and the bright as 
``burley.''
  But perhaps most important, a look back on history reveals that all 
too often, the farmer's interests were supplanted by those of 
government and industry.
  Most social studies classes still teach the story of how Sir Walter 
Raleigh introduced tobacco to England, and how a maid doused him with a 
pitcher of water because she thought he was on fire.
  But few talk about the year 1872, when the first tobacco tax was 
levied. It was done as a way to take control away from the farmer. The 
manufacturers reasoned that the tax would wipe out the grower-to-
customer market, forcing the farmers to sell directly to the tobacco 
companies.
  Farmers eventually conceded, because, even back then, there was no 
other crop to take its place.
  According to the Kentucky Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative, ``in 
all the time that it has existed--despite several valiant efforts to 
give burley growers some semblance of bargaining power in the 
marketplace--the burley industry knew little relative stability until 
1941.''
  It was 1941 that the tobacco program of price supports and production 
controls was introduced. It was a real victory for farmers, providing 
them stability and better control over their livelihood. And it is a 
successful program that could serve as a model for other commodities.
  When a Kentucky farmer removes his young plants from the beds or the 
nursery by hand, and then replants them in the field, his hand shadows 
the motions of hundreds of thousands of others that have come before 
him.
  John Berry, former head of the Kentucky Burley Tobacco Growers 
Cooperative Association put it this way, ``Tobacco is inextricably 
involved in the history of the place where I live. It is not written in 
the history books but in the minds and memories of those who lived the 
experience and those who heard the stories.''
  That history is as ingrained in Kentucky farmers like Louis Jones or 
Roger Perkins or Gordon Catlett as their individual fingerprints.
  Jones can trace his tobacco history back to 1735 when his family 
first came to this country. They have been raising tobacco ever since. 
The 57 acres he farms will buy new equipment, pay the mortgage and most 
important, someday help send his children to college.
  When Roger Perkins and his father set tobacco on their Franklin 
County farm, they are walking down the same rows father and son of a 
generation before walked down. When his 15-year-old daughter goes to 
college, tobacco will have made it possible.
  Gordon Catlett is a bit younger. And like 70 percent of Kentucky 
tobacco farmers, he works another job at the utility company. But 
thanks to tobacco, he is looking to buy the Anderson County farm he 
works. He understands what John Berry meant when he said, ``If you want 
people to love their country, let them own a piece of it.''
  When each of them go to set their tobacco, they are planting a whole 
lot of history. And without government interference, they are planting 
their future as well.
  What my colleagues need to understand, is that any attacks on tobacco 
are going to have a profound effect on a lot of small people.
  I think you know who I am talking about. Many of you have stood here 
in the Senate and talked about the constituents in your State who put 
in a hard days work expecting nothing more than a fair wage and a safe 
environment to raise their families. Farmers and all the people in the 
close knit communities tobacco made possible are no different. You will 
be taking away not only their livelihood, but their sense of history--
their sense of place.
  So, Mr. President, when my colleagues dismiss the tobacco farmer, 
talking about giving them some sort of kickback from a tax or telling 
them they need to enter a retraining program, they just do not get it.
  Those notions may play well in the newspaper, but they are counter to 
the traditions of hard work and independence that are the life-blood of 
any tobacco farmer.
  Worms, weeds, and weather were certainly a part of that history. But 
government welfare, just as certainly was not.
  I ask that Danny McKinney's column be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the column was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                            Tobacco Growers

                          (By Danny McKinney)

       While we Kentucky burley growers celebrated July Fourth, we 
     had good reasons to commemorate our own heritage as farmer-
     patriots in 1775.
       We were not public enemies then, and really are not today.
       We simply grow tobacco--just as tobacco growers like George 
     Washington and Thomas Jefferson did before us.
       In fact, historians record that, nearly 400 years ago, 
     tobacco quite literally launched America's economy.
       In 1613, Pocahantas's husband, John Rolfe, sold his first 
     commercial crop--tobacco--which was also Colonial America's 
     first export.
       And for nearly 200 years after Rolfe's start, tobacco would 
     reign as this society's principal export.
       Yet our heritage didn't stop there.
       By 1633, tobacco was the British colonies' first and 
     primary currency. This remained the rule, even during the 
     American Revolution when George Washington appealed to other 
     rebelling colonists, ``If you can't send money, send 
     tobacco.''
       And our ancestral farmer-patriots did just that.
       The tobacco they donated helped to buy supplies for 
     Washington's Colonial Army and to fund the First Continental 
     Congress.
       As well, during the Revolution's darkest hours, Benjamin 
     Franklin negotiated a loan for Washington's soldiers from 
     France, and that loan was backed by 5,000 wooden barrels of 
     Virginia tobacco.
       So like those early farmer-patriots, who in 1775 started 
     the American revolution to protect their economy and way of 
     life from oppressive government intrusions we modern Kentucky 
     burley growers cannot retreat.
       Our heritage as tobacco growers helped give birth to this 
     nation, but nearly 220 years later we find ourselves in very 
     much the same position as our forefathers.
       Like them, we're compelled to defend our way of life 
     against government tax and legislative proposals every bit as 
     oppressive to us as those measures of 1775.
       We cannot allow political opportunities to tear down the 
     values associated with the growing of tobacco nurtured over 
     hundreds of years and vital to our society--values like 
     strong family bonds, work ethic, dedication, love for the 
     land and pursuit of honorable endeavor.
       Nor can we allow the extraordinary economic benefits 
     generated by tobacco for all Kentuckians to be swept away in 
     the ever-changing currents of public opinion.

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