Looking Back
Published 6:02 am Thursday, March 20, 2003
By Staff
Tobacco is still being grown in North Carolina. Most of the tobacco warehouses have long since folded. Farmers, as naturally expected, want to sell their tobacco for the highest possible price.
Now foreign countries are raising tobacco and if tobacco companies can buy foreign grown tobacco cheaper than tobacco grown in the USA, then local tobacco farmers are bound to suffer.
A few days ago, a letter sent to Washington, D.C., bearing the signatures of all 50 North Carolina state senators says that help is needed in switching from the present system of production controls. The state congressional delegation is being urged to seek that needed help. It would apply both to flue-cured and burley tobacco. It is being pointed out quite clearly that we cannot compete so long as our present system prevails.