LEAF NEWS
Buyers bid for leaf at the American Tobacco Exchange auction in Wilson, N.C., on October 16.
UNITED STATES Low prices, weak supply, reduced production make for a bleak leaf market wilson, n.c.—The market for fluecured tobacco in the United States was close to collapse in mid October thanks to scant demand and very low prices. When Tobacco International attended the auction sale at American Tobacco Exchange here in Wilson on October 16, it found a glum group of farmers watching as buyers walked down the rows of bales. “1.20 a pound has been the best price I have seen, and that was for some very good tobacco,” said a flue-cured grower from Louisburg, N.C. “A lot of this crop was sold at 90 cents a pound, and some of it was sold at 75 cents!” He said that the latter price would not be enough to cover cost of production. “I am worried,” he said. “I have bought several (bulk curing) barns in the last few years. Counting the slabs and other preparation I have had to
put into them, I probably have $36,000 in each of them. If I decided to get out of tobacco, I think I would have a hard time selling them for more than $2,500.” All tobacco was believed to have been harvested in the eastern Belt, but a little flue-cured remained to be gathered
in the Piedmont area in western N.C. The process was expected to be done by November 1. No frost had been experienced in the Piedmont through October 16. Auction sales, or at least some of them, were expected to continue up to Thanksgiving.
It was hard for these farmers to get excited about the auction sale of their tobacco in Wilson, N.C. “A lot of this crop was sold at 90 cents a pound, and some of it was sold at 75 cents!” The latter price would not be enough to cover cost of production.
38 TOBACCO INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019
