Tobacco.org

• Farmers standing by tobacco, particularly as researchers find new uses for crop 

After a few ups and downs, including the War Between the States, which destroyed half the state's tobacco crop, South Carolina's "bright leaf" production rebounded, thanks to a top-quality crop and a heavy-smoking population.

Today, the Palmetto State's tobacco crop is considered one of the highest-quality, flue-cured leaves available, and demand has remained steady, despite the war on smoking here in the United States.

"Consumption here in this country has definitely gone down, but demand for our tobacco is up," . . .

While international smoking trends continue to drive up demand for South Carolina's tobacco, researchers are studying alternative uses for the plant.

"It's a plant that produces a fair amount of soluble protein in its biomass," explains Bruce Fornum,

Ph.D., of Clemson University's Pee Dee Research and Education Center, "So there's the opportunity to genetically modify that tobacco to produce other proteins that might be useful - possibly as an industrial protein or as a pharmaceutical protein. That would give tobacco farmers another avenue. . . .

Five or ten years from now, tobacco farmers could wind up in the pharmaceutical industry.

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