We’re a month gone from land fall of Hurricane Irene. Graham Boyd, Executive VP of the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina says that while as originally thought, some fields were a total loss, since then, some positives have occurred:
“Obviously, counties way down east, that tobacco was completely destroyed, those farmers never re-entered the field after the hurricane. As you move back towards, say the Wilson area, there’s been efforts to mitigate what storm damage tobacco remained in the field. I think that there’s going to be a short supply, especially of high quality tobacco. But, what we’ve seen in the market place, we’ve seen some price adjustment from companies and some of that is trying to offer some financial assistance to the growers at the marketplace. And I think also, the companies are being very compassionate in how they judge or grade this tobacco when they can give the benefit of the doubt. I’m not talking about a gross miss-grading if you can nudge it just another ounce and give it a number 2 grade instead of a number 3, and justify it to the buyer that little bit goes a long way to help these growers.”
While a dollar figure will be difficult to pin down due to several different grades still in the field, Boyd says there is a general consensus on pounds lost to the storm:
“As far as sustained volume of losses it’s a general consensus out here, Extension Service data, and our association’s done polling data, and the companies have estimates as well as they survey growers, it’s widely believed that in the east that the losses are 150 million pounds, 35, 40% of the crop. And depending on which company has presence concentrated in the east, that number could be higher.”
But, Boyd reminds us that while ‘down east’ crops are damaged or lost, not all of North Carolina’s crop was not lost:
“I think that it’s important to note that there’s still a lot of good tobacco around, there was good tobacco harvested prior to the storm, and in points east of Wake County, for example, is everything west of there was spared any wind damage so growers in what we call the Middle Belt and the Old Belt have a very nice crop, it’s going to be late. If frost will hold off until late period of this season, then there’s a lot of good quality tobacco that can come to the market.”
In the early days after the storm, the fear was that the market would be flooded with inferior, storm damaged leaf. Boyd says that situation appears to not be happening:
“I think that the growers that are out there harvesting are being diligent to try to be selective in not bringing storm damaged tobacco to the market. That’s what you see at these grading stations. You’re going to still see some good quality, it’s just going to be short quantity.”
Executive Vice President of Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina, Graham Boyd
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