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For some farmers, it is just as hard to quit growing tobacco as it is to quit smoking it.
Three generations of Mixons have managed neither in spite of the loss of the federally mandated buyout of the price support and supply control program.
"We're so far in, we've got to stay,'' said 78-year-old Jack Mixon, who used a sharpened peg to poke a hole and transplant his first tobacco 70 years ago. That's about the age of the government-regulated tobacco allotment program that kept farmers hooked with good prices. Now the prices are lower as farmers contract directly with tobacco companies.
Mixon, his son, Donald, 57, and grandson, Phillip, 27, are partners in Mixon Farms in the Waresboro community. Between them they will grow 700,000 pounds under contract.
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Old habits diehard. This is what the National Tobacco Board is facing as it tries to persuade tobacco farmers not to be too dependent on tobacco for a living, but to diversify into planting of maize, padi, or other economically viable crops.
Some of the farmers were cynical.
Hussein Haron, 53, said: "The board should take over the marketing of maize if I fail to do so."
He was advised to plant maize, watermelons, vegetables or any other crops which can be marketed easily.
Hussein, from Kampung Bujuk, Pasir Mas, was convinced to make the change and opted to plant maize under the integrated crop programme. However, he was not sure of the market for the new crop. . . .
Although he had been planting tobacco for the past 17 years, Hussein was finally convinced that the future for tobacco farmers was not that rosy as the tobacco industry was in the crossroads.
The industry was facing too many obstacles, including the government's policy to reduce the output quota of tobacco leaves, implementation of marketing reforms to suit the requirements of the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the dumping of smuggled cigarettes.
Hussein realised the sale of tobacco would continue to decline in view of the "Tak Nak" anti-smoking campaign launched by the Health Ministry.
TOBACCO farmers of Andhra Pradesh, caught in the vice-like grip of involuntary excess production (overshooting the annual crop size stipulated by the Tobacco Board) indicate an indirect crop loss of nearly 20 million kg on account of contraband cigarettes entering through the porous land borders with Nepal and Bangladesh. The other problem cited by them is the growing instability vis-à-vis excise on cigarettes.
They fear that the increasingly large volumes of such cigarettes coming from across the borders will gradually kill the domestic industry and, consequently, severely affect the livelihood of the five million tobacco farmers, mainly in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
The spurt in cigarette smuggling, it is pointed out, also means a significant loss of revenue for the Government, estimated at around Rs 2,000 crore annually.
A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by tobacco growers and quota holders alleging bid-rigging against cigarette manufacturers can be class action.
This allows all other quota holders and tobacco holders to be included although they not have signed the original litigation. According to Keith Parrish of Coats, U.S. Judge William Osteen presiding in Greensboro made the ruling Wednesday. This means there are now 500,000 plaintiffs, Mr. Parrish said.
"It's a good day for farmers. A lot of folks were feeling very desperate," he said.
The lawsuit has been several years in progress. First, high-profile attorney Alexander Pires had to get farmers committed. Then, it has been waiting in the court system and going through changes.
Originally, farmers and quota holders were suing because of the master settlement distribution from cigarette manufacturers. That suit maintained the federal and state attorney generals and cigarette companies ignored the farmers in their deliberations and subsequent compensations.
However, Mr. Parrish said, the lawsuit has evolved and now it is an anti-trust suit. . .
The litigation now maintains the cigarette companies acted in collusion by price fixing and creating an environment deterimental to tobacco farmers and quota holders.
Mr. Parrish said no matter where you went in the tobacco market or what state, the prices cigarette companies were offering for tobacco were the same. "Everything was bringing the same price," he said.
Philip Morris and other cigarette makers are asking a federal court to throw out a lawsuit by about 6,000 tobacco growers and quota holders accusing the tobacco companies of violating federal antitrust law.
In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed Thursday, lawyers for Philip Morris contended the growers and quota holders essentially were attempting to preserve the federal tobacco program, and “that is clearly beyond the scope of the antitrust laws.”
“While the goal of the antitrust laws is to enhance competition and thus reduce prices, plaintiffs seek to invoke the antitrust laws to increase the price they are paid for tobacco and to ensure that the Federal Tobacco Program . . . is not replaced with a free market,” the tobacco companies said.
The cigarette companies also said the lawsuit failed to provide enough detail to back up its allegation that manufacturers manipulated the tobacco auction system.
At least 30 Bluegrass burley farmers last night joined the latest fight against Big Tobacco by signing on to a national lawsuit against cigarette makers.
Washington attorney Alexander Pires Jr. is suing the big four Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Louisville-based Brown & Williamson and Lorillard on behalf of farmers who have lost millions in the wake of the tobacco settlement with the states.
The suit alleges that the companies, through massive cuts in the amount of U.S. tobacco they buy, have defrauded growers and violated anti-trust laws in attempting to break the federal program that sets tobacco prices. About 150 people attended last night's meeting, one of five held this week around the state,
Regardless of its outcome, the lawsuit, filed last month, highlights a growing fracture in what once had been a solid alliance of manufacturers and farmers battling their tobacco foes. The lawsuit also signals a new shift in the political dynamics of the golden leaf. Both tobacco foes and supporters say the lawsuit makes it harder for the industry to defend its interests on Capitol Hill.
Tobacco farmers who have filed a $69 billion lawsuit claiming that cigarette makers are trying to put them out of business are motivated by greed, the head of the National Tobacco Council says.
A class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court alleges that the companies misled farmers into helping them stop congressional legislation in 1998 that would have given growers $28 billion. The companies later reached a settlement with the states that will provide growers with much less -- $5.15 billion over 12 years.
"An acre of tobacco will bring $3,000 to $4,000,'' said Graham, who is vice president of the Southwestern Tobacco and Agriculture Association. "Tobacco is a good thing. It's the best cash crop you can grow out there that's legal.''
The association represents about 100 state tobacco growers. West Virginia's tobacco growers are concentrated in a 13-county area and is a "drop in the bucket'' in terms of annual production.
The lawsuit is a direct challenge to the landmark 1998 tobacco agreement between the states and the tobacco industry. The notion that the chief law enforcement officers of the states aided a violation of antitrust laws or the constitution is ludicrous and three lawsuits challenging the tobacco agreement and seeking damages on antitrust, constitutional and civil rights grounds have already been thrown out by federal courts.
Flue-cured tobacco farmers in five Southern states, including Georgia, plan to sue cigarette companies, state attorneys general and the U.S. Agriculture Department for as much as $18 billion over losses from quota cuts, their attorney said Thursday.
Attorney Alexander Pires Jr. of Washington, representing tobacco growers from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Florida said the lawsuit would be filed Thanksgiving week. Pires recently won a multimillion-dollar settlement for black farmers.
About 160 tobacco farmers met Oct. 12 in Smithfield, N.C., to discuss the lawsuit. An additional 700 farmers met in Georgia the next day, Pires said.