CARROLLTON - Finally, some good news for Kentucky's tobacco growers.
Burley tobacco markets opened here and across the eight-state burley belt Monday - which includes Kentucky and Ohio - with some of the highest per-pound prices in years.
Tobacco companies paid as high as $1.92 per pound for the thousands of bundles of burley stacked in tight rows on the cold cement floor at the Kentuckiana Tobacco Warehouse in Carrollton, purposedly kept chilly and dark to maintain the moisture in tobacco leaves.
This comes in a year that saw the state's top cash crop threatened by tough new government regulations, battered by bad weather and attacked by blue mold disease.
''That's a darn good price,'' said George Gripshover, 37, who grew about 120,000 pounds of tobacco this year on his family's 50-acre Big Bone Road Farm near Union in Boone County.
Mr. Gripshover was one of dozens of growers from the northern and central parts of the state who gathered at one of Carrollton's three tobacco warehouses to begin selling this year's crop.
''It's been kind of a rough year, with the weather and all,'' he said. ''This price helps make up for some of that, but we'll probably be down a little in how much we bring in this year."
Last year's average price was $1.85 a pound, said Billy Tackett, a U.S. Department of Agriculture grader from Stamping Ground, Ky.
Growers said the last time they can remember prices going over $1.90 was in the early 1980s.
Mr. Tackett, whose job it is to ''grade,'' or determine the quality of the tobacco, said this year's burley ''is a good-looking crop."
''The tan leaves are the best,'' Mr. Tackett said as he pulled a strip of tobacco from a bundle to get a closer look. ''And there's a lot of tan on the (warehouse) floor. It'll be a good year for the farmers."
Melvin Lyons, owner of the Kentuckiana warehouse, said while burley's quality is up this year, production is down.
''We had a wet spring, and then it didn't rain when we needed it in the summer,'' Mr. Lyons said. ''On top of that, we got blue mold, so when it did rain, the mold spread to other plants and killed some."
During Monday's auction at Kentuckiana, about 150,000 pounds of tobacco was purchased by large cigarette makers like R.J. Reynolds and American Brands.
By the time the sales end in January, Mr. Lyons expects to have moved more than 3 million pounds.
Grower Damon Lewis hopes to harvest as much as 140,000 pounds of tobacco from his 70-acre farm outside of Ghent, a small Carroll County farm town that sits along the Ohio River a few miles west of Carrollton.
But his overall crop will be down about 10 percent this year, thanks to the weather and the blue mold.
''Seems like it's always something we have to worry about,'' said Mr. Lewis, who sold about 16,000 pounds Monday. ''We know we have to deal with the weather, but it's things we don't have any control over that is so frustrating, like more government regulations."
Mr. Lewis, who grew up on a farm, said he would like to see his 4-year-old son, Brennon, someday take up farming ''but I don't know if tobacco will still be around then.
''None of us do."
A large banner strung across the cavernous warehouse reads ''Keep the FDA Off the Farm,'' an oft-repeated slogan as President Clinton ponders federal regulations that would classify tobacco as a drug.
That, growers said, would hurt tobacco sales and possibly lead to its demise.
Depending on tobacco
A full-time farmer who also raises dairy cattle and hay, Mr. Gripshover - the father of children ages 6 and 2 - said tobacco provides the bulk of his annual income.
Talk of regulating tobacco makes him ''nervous."
''I'd wish they'd just leave it alone,'' Mr. Gripshover said. ''There are a lot of people who make their living off tobacco. What are we supposed to do if they run us off the farm?''
Dozens of small towns across Kentucky depend on tobacco to keep their economy vibrant, said David Lyons, president of Citizens Bank in New Liberty, a tiny farming community in nearby Owen County.
''The loss of tobacco, or even a major reduction in tobacco output, would devastate so many small towns and communities,'' said Mr. Lyons, whose bank lends money to many of the farmers selling tobacco at Monday's sale.
It's not just the farmers who would be hurt if tobacco production would be seriously reduced, said another Owen County banker at Monday's sale in Carrollton.
Ben Lykins, chairman and president of the Citizens Bank & Trust Co. in Owenton, said that according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the tobacco dollar turns over six times in communities where it is grown.
Of Kentucky's 120 counties, tobacco is grown in all but one - Pike County in far eastern Kentucky. There are about 90,000 farms in the state, according to the Kentucky Agricultural Statistics Service, and 60,000 of those grow tobacco.
''Farmers will sell about $19 million of tobacco in Owen County this year,'' Mr. Lykins said.
Seed money
''That money goes right back into the community, at car dealers, at hardware stores, at grocery stores and furniture stores, so you can see what kind of impact tobacco has in a place like Owenton.
''Multiply that across the state, and you can see what tobacco means to Kentucky."
Farmers are expected to sell about 420 million pounds of burley this year. And it's not just small towns that feel tobacco's economic impact.
Jefferson County Judge-executive David Armstrong released a statement Monday saying agribusiness accounts for nearly 10 percent of all jobs in the Louisville area, home of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company.
''And tobacco processing accounts for 27 percent of the area's agribusiness payroll,'' Mr. Armstrong said. ''So the continued success of your tobacco crop is paramount to the economic strength of all Kentucky communities - including urban areas like Jefferson County and Louisville."
Published Nov. 26, 1996.
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