[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 23, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E528-E529]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        COLUMNIST DENNIS ROGERS ON THE PLIGHT OF TOBACCO FARMERS

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                           HON. BOB ETHERIDGE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 23, 1999

  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I grew up on a tobacco farm, and I 
continue to grow tobacco today. Higher federal taxes and litigation by 
the states have severely altered the market for tobacco and have led to 
income losses of thirty five percent for tobacco farmers in the past 
two years alone. The actions that have led to this point have been 
taken in retaliation against the industry and its practices, but the 
harm has been felt on the farm. Tobacco farmers need help.
  Since coming to the House two years ago, I have tried to articulate 
to Congress the plight tobacco farmers are in as a result the ongoing 
tobacco wars. Earlier this month, Dennis Rogers, a columnist with The 
News and Observer

[[Page E529]]

daily newspaper in Raleigh, North Carolina, wrote an excellent essay on 
the position tobacco farmers find themselves in 1999. Mr. Speaker, I 
request that Mr. Rogers' article be placed at this point in the record, 
and I hope it will provide guidance to us all as we debate issues 
related to tobacco in the future. Congress can benefit greatly from the 
clear-eyed perspective of this insightful North Carolinian whose feet 
are planted firmly on the ground.

                [From the News & Observer, Mar. 3, 1999]

                    It's Not Greed, But Desperation

                           (By Dennis Rogers)

       The numbers are so obscenely large as to be meaningless: 
     There is $4.6 billion to be paid by the tobacco industry to 
     the state of North Carolina over 25 years. There is $1.97 
     billion for a trust fund to be spread among the state's 
     tobacco farmers over the next 12 years.
       But regardless of how much money tobacco farmers eventually 
     get, if any, what are they supposed to do then?
       Unless you're a farmer, you probably don't care. You've 
     made it clear in your e-mails and phone calls that many of 
     you think tobacco farmers are whiners trying to hang on to a 
     dying business. Nobody guarantees me a living, you've 
     cynically said, so why should we do it for them?
       But unlike you, I've heard from the farmers, too, strong 
     men and women who are scared about their futures. It is 
     enough to break your heart.
       What they talk about most is not the money, but losing 
     their souls, their culture, their foundation and their 
     heritage. They talk about the land their ancestors entrusted 
     to their care and the shame they would feel in losing it.
       They talk about wanting to give their children the chance 
     they had, to stand under a hot Carolina sun and feel your own 
     land beneath your feet, the same land that once nurtured the 
     old folks buried in the church cemetery just down the road.
       ``What am I going to do if I stop farming?'' asked Johnston 
     County's John Talbot as we rode in Monday's protest through 
     the streets of Raleigh. ``I'm 45 years old. Who is going to 
     hire me?''
       Who, indeed? If the tobacco farmers of Eastern North 
     Carolina stop farming, what will become of them? A rootless 
     corporate culture is all a lot of city folks around here 
     know. They do not understand or feel sympathy for the middle-
     aged farmer who senses that the very ground beneath his feet 
     is moving away.
       A country family's desperate need for independence may not 
     mean much to those of us who have never had it. There are a 
     lot of us who have never known anything but the slavery of 
     working for a paycheck. We might even resent a farmer's plea 
     that he should be helped to maintain a way of life that seems 
     so alien to us.
       But what option do they have? There are few good jobs in 
     the tobacco country where they live? We've kept most of the 
     good jobs for ourselves and left country folks who live a 
     long way from town with precious little to turn to now that 
     their lives and times have gotten tough.
       But before you turn your back on them, ask yourself whether 
     they helped make your good job possible. Farmers have long 
     seen their tax dollars pay corporations to bring jobs to the 
     state that they, because of where they live and the skills 
     they don't have, can never hope to get.
       Now, they say, that same government is reluctant to given 
     them what they see as their fair share of the money from 
     tobacco companies they have depended on for their livelihood.
       There was a sign on a tractor driven by a woman in Monday's 
     protest that read, ``We are not greedy. We are desperate.''
       We may yet succeed in forcing our farmers from their 
     fields, and contrary to their hollow threats, no, we will not 
     go hungry.
       But they will. Their souls will wither just as surely as a 
     spring daffodil fades away when it is picked and brought 
     indoors.

     

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