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Tobacco farmers rally for buyout 

More than 40 tobacco farmers travelled to London yesterday to stop another Liberal campaign promise from going up in smoke. The crowd quadrupled at the pre-budget consultation hosted by several MPPs when the farmers, led by officials with Ontario's Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board, arrived to urge the government to keep its pledge and give their troubled industry $50 million in compensation in the upcoming provincial budget.

"We are now a community in crisis," Fred Neukamm, chairperson of the tobacco board, said of his 1,000 members.

"The collapse of the cod fishery and the demise of entire communities in Newfoundland (is) an appropriate analogy."

Although the federal government has offered $67 million to buy out tobacco farmers hoping to leave the industry, the Ontario Liberals' $50-million campaign pledge -- essentially to help those same farmers with the transition -- hasn't been realized, Neukamm said.

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