| Ohio Tobacco Festival touts its new growers |
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| By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent
RIPLEY, Ohio — Organizers of the Ohio Tobacco Festival in Ripley have had a different theme for each of their 26 festivals. This year’s theme, Tobacco - A New Beginning, seemed fitting as there are nearly as many people starting to grow tobacco as there are getting out of the business.
“We’re starting to see young people growing tobacco,” said Greg Applegate, chairman of the Ohio Tobacco Festival now in his sixth year at the helm. “A lot of the older people have quit since the buyout, but the last two years some of them are coming back. And a lot of the kids and grandkids of these farmers are beginning to keep at it.”
Baby shows, tobacco-plugging contests, tobacco-grading events, arm wrestling, horseshoe competition, parades and even corn hole tournaments attracted more than 10,000 to this year’s four-day event. Yet these events don’t tell the hardship that has faced tobacco growers during the past two decades.
“I’m a grower, and I grew up with it,” Applegate said. “When we lost the support of the federal government, that put us in the hands of the tobacco companies and their contracts. Profit-wise, I can’t say we’re any worse off than before. We used to have quotas, but that went out with the buyouts.”
Applegate has 10,000 acres of tobacco on his farm. The average “large producer” has 40,000 acres of the crop.
Guy McRoberts, 87, is a polished tobacco grower. McRoberts, of Fleming County in Kentucky, has a son, two grandsons and four great-grandsons growing the crop. He used to grow 20 acres of the crop.
“I’ve cut down because we have no quota control,” McRoberts said. We now have contract systems and that’s better than nothing.”
This year’s festival had a visitor from Norfolk, England.
Chris Nunn learned about the festival by searching the Internet. And he’s no stranger to U.S. tobacco shows.
“Fiddling with tobacco is just a hobby of mine,” said Nunn, who is 70. “We don’t grow the crop in England, but I’m just interested in it. Years ago England grew the crop, but not any more.”
According to Nunn, wheat, barley, potatoes and beets are England’s main crops.
“I’m here for the friendliness and the sunshine,” said Nunn, who spent 22 hours getting to Ripley from England. “The first tobacco festival I attended was in Boston in 1935. In 1940, there was one in Richmond, Va.”
While the heat and humidity has plagued most in the Midwest, it has only helped tobacco crops.
“For the weather we’ve had, tobacco has been good,” Applegate said. “Tobacco will grow in hot weather, if it gets a good start.” |
| 9/5/2007 |
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