[LINK] "The tough transition from tilling tobacco"
Caroline Alphonso's article in today's issue of The Globe and Mail, "The tough transition from tilling tobacco" outlines the collapse of Canada's tobacco farming. The fall has been sharp: At one point, as as International Development Research Centre pointed out, tobacco farming used to be big business in Canada thanks to government fiscal policies and--of course--domestic demand.
About 90% of the tobacco grown in Canada is produced in a highly concentrated area in southwestern Ontario, especially near the towns of Delhi and Tillsonburg close to the north shore of Lake Erie. The remainder is grown near Joliette, Quebec (98 farmers), and there is a smattering in New Brunswick (5 farmers), Nova Scotia (9 farmers), and Prince Edward Island (35 farmers).
At one time, most of the tobacco used in Canada was imported from the United States. What was grown in Canada was principally cultivated in Quebec, but some was grown in Essex and Kent counties near Windsor, Ontario. Tobacco growing had been introduced in these counties by United Empire Loyalists, who brought seeds from their tobacco farms in the United States.
A number of events stimulated domestic tobacco farming. The American Civil War (1861-65) raised the price of US tobacco, which prompted companies in Canada to look for other sources of supply. In the early 1880s, the federal government's National Policy stimulated domestic growing by setting taxes on domestic tobacco at lower levels than the tariffs on imported tobacco. Other fiscal changes in 1897 gave further protection to Canadian growers. The amount of tobacco grown increased from 726 000 kg in 1870-71 to 7 938 000 kg in 1910. Part of the growth was attributable to the introduction in 1900 of flue-cured tobacco in the Leamington area of southern Ontario by the Empire Tobacco Co., a forerunner of Imperial. By 1920 the upswing of Canadian-grown tobacco continued, but still two thirds of the tobacco used in Canada was imported. It was in the 1930s that tobacco started to be produced in great quantities in what today is Ontario’s tobacco belt, much of which was once a sandy dustbowl. By the 1950s, 99% of the tobacco in Canadian cigarettes was grown in Canada.
The decline of smoking has hit these farmers very hard, as Charles Wyatt wrote in Business Edge ("Tobacco growers butt out their farms") back in 2005, with numerous efforts by farmers to sell their quotas and extract themselves from the farms, with the number of tobacco growers in Ontario shrinking consistently, frm 4 500 in the 1960s, to 1 650 in the early 1990s, to 1 100 in 1988, 1 100 in 2001, 770 in 2004, and 650 in 2005. It didn't help matters that these farms were often too small to be adapted to other uses, with potential niches like fruits and vegetables being already filled by farms enjoying better conditions. (My uncle switched, successfully, to fish farming.) The remaining farms are in southwestern Ontario counties of "Brant, Elgin, Norfork and Oxford, near the northern shores of Lake Erie where the sandy soil is suitable for tobacco." The number, as Alphonso writes, has shrunk even more further thanks to the farmers' rising debt loads and government programs intended to pay this debt. Alphonso visits one tobacco farmer and his farm to take a look at the human cost.
The pungent sweetness of tobacco hangs heavy in the air at the entrance of the Godelie family farm.
Its master farmer, Gary Godelie, is inside on this August afternoon, a cigarette dangling loosely from his lips, as he scoops armloads of dried, golden tobacco leaves and heaps them into a trailer. The leaves will be carted off to a nearby barn for storage for a few weeks until it's time to sell them on the market.
For more than three decades, Mr. Godelie has revelled in tilling the fields, planting the crop and curing the leaves. Now, he wants out.
The sandy soil that once reaped profits for tobacco farmers here in Southwestern Ontario along Lake Erie has transformed into economic quicksand as cessation programs, domestic companies turning to cheaper imported leaf and the growth in contraband have crippled the industry - and are slowly killing it.
"There is a day when I won't be involved in the farm," said Mr. Godelie, an affable 56-year-old with a ready smile who grows serious when the talk turns from tending to his farm to the inexorable death of it.
[. . .]
After receiving a diploma in farm management at the University of Guelph in the early 1970s, Mr. Godelie managed farms until he started producing his own tobacco. His parents were tobacco farmers as well. So were his wife's parents. The couple bought a 20-hectare farm in 1980, but then moved their tobacco-growing operation two decades later to the 40-hectare field just a few minutes from home and next door to the elementary school Mr. Godelie attended.
The road into tobacco country is dotted with rich green tobacco plants and the kilns used to dry and cure the leaves to make them soft and golden. A row of maple trees stand tall along the entrance of the Godelies' tobacco farm. But despite the pristine feel of the countryside, there are signs of trouble. The number of growers dropped to 444 last year from 1,215 in 1990, according to the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board. And this year's crop size is expected to be 20 million pounds, compared with 130 million pounds in 1990.
For Sale signs have cropped up along the route. Tobacco producers are not only saddled with paying for the land, but also for the specialized equipment they require. Because they operate on small plots of sandy soil, diversification is made all the more difficult.
"It's a struggling industry," said Linda Vandendriessche, chairwoman of the Ontario tobacco board. "People cannot pay off debt and continue to grow something different. You have creditors. You have financial institutions from which you've borrowed money. These debts have to be paid back.
"We know there are many people that are welcoming an exit and need to take an exit and want to take an exit. There will be a lot of farmers, I anticipate, taking that."
About 90% of the tobacco grown in Canada is produced in a highly concentrated area in southwestern Ontario, especially near the towns of Delhi and Tillsonburg close to the north shore of Lake Erie. The remainder is grown near Joliette, Quebec (98 farmers), and there is a smattering in New Brunswick (5 farmers), Nova Scotia (9 farmers), and Prince Edward Island (35 farmers).
At one time, most of the tobacco used in Canada was imported from the United States. What was grown in Canada was principally cultivated in Quebec, but some was grown in Essex and Kent counties near Windsor, Ontario. Tobacco growing had been introduced in these counties by United Empire Loyalists, who brought seeds from their tobacco farms in the United States.
A number of events stimulated domestic tobacco farming. The American Civil War (1861-65) raised the price of US tobacco, which prompted companies in Canada to look for other sources of supply. In the early 1880s, the federal government's National Policy stimulated domestic growing by setting taxes on domestic tobacco at lower levels than the tariffs on imported tobacco. Other fiscal changes in 1897 gave further protection to Canadian growers. The amount of tobacco grown increased from 726 000 kg in 1870-71 to 7 938 000 kg in 1910. Part of the growth was attributable to the introduction in 1900 of flue-cured tobacco in the Leamington area of southern Ontario by the Empire Tobacco Co., a forerunner of Imperial. By 1920 the upswing of Canadian-grown tobacco continued, but still two thirds of the tobacco used in Canada was imported. It was in the 1930s that tobacco started to be produced in great quantities in what today is Ontario’s tobacco belt, much of which was once a sandy dustbowl. By the 1950s, 99% of the tobacco in Canadian cigarettes was grown in Canada.
The decline of smoking has hit these farmers very hard, as Charles Wyatt wrote in Business Edge ("Tobacco growers butt out their farms") back in 2005, with numerous efforts by farmers to sell their quotas and extract themselves from the farms, with the number of tobacco growers in Ontario shrinking consistently, frm 4 500 in the 1960s, to 1 650 in the early 1990s, to 1 100 in 1988, 1 100 in 2001, 770 in 2004, and 650 in 2005. It didn't help matters that these farms were often too small to be adapted to other uses, with potential niches like fruits and vegetables being already filled by farms enjoying better conditions. (My uncle switched, successfully, to fish farming.) The remaining farms are in southwestern Ontario counties of "Brant, Elgin, Norfork and Oxford, near the northern shores of Lake Erie where the sandy soil is suitable for tobacco." The number, as Alphonso writes, has shrunk even more further thanks to the farmers' rising debt loads and government programs intended to pay this debt. Alphonso visits one tobacco farmer and his farm to take a look at the human cost.
The pungent sweetness of tobacco hangs heavy in the air at the entrance of the Godelie family farm.
Its master farmer, Gary Godelie, is inside on this August afternoon, a cigarette dangling loosely from his lips, as he scoops armloads of dried, golden tobacco leaves and heaps them into a trailer. The leaves will be carted off to a nearby barn for storage for a few weeks until it's time to sell them on the market.
For more than three decades, Mr. Godelie has revelled in tilling the fields, planting the crop and curing the leaves. Now, he wants out.
The sandy soil that once reaped profits for tobacco farmers here in Southwestern Ontario along Lake Erie has transformed into economic quicksand as cessation programs, domestic companies turning to cheaper imported leaf and the growth in contraband have crippled the industry - and are slowly killing it.
"There is a day when I won't be involved in the farm," said Mr. Godelie, an affable 56-year-old with a ready smile who grows serious when the talk turns from tending to his farm to the inexorable death of it.
[. . .]
After receiving a diploma in farm management at the University of Guelph in the early 1970s, Mr. Godelie managed farms until he started producing his own tobacco. His parents were tobacco farmers as well. So were his wife's parents. The couple bought a 20-hectare farm in 1980, but then moved their tobacco-growing operation two decades later to the 40-hectare field just a few minutes from home and next door to the elementary school Mr. Godelie attended.
The road into tobacco country is dotted with rich green tobacco plants and the kilns used to dry and cure the leaves to make them soft and golden. A row of maple trees stand tall along the entrance of the Godelies' tobacco farm. But despite the pristine feel of the countryside, there are signs of trouble. The number of growers dropped to 444 last year from 1,215 in 1990, according to the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board. And this year's crop size is expected to be 20 million pounds, compared with 130 million pounds in 1990.
For Sale signs have cropped up along the route. Tobacco producers are not only saddled with paying for the land, but also for the specialized equipment they require. Because they operate on small plots of sandy soil, diversification is made all the more difficult.
"It's a struggling industry," said Linda Vandendriessche, chairwoman of the Ontario tobacco board. "People cannot pay off debt and continue to grow something different. You have creditors. You have financial institutions from which you've borrowed money. These debts have to be paid back.
"We know there are many people that are welcoming an exit and need to take an exit and want to take an exit. There will be a lot of farmers, I anticipate, taking that."