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Southern ThoughtsSouthern Thoughts   
A look at hot topics, news and information picked up in travels around the region.
 
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Bell Tolls on Georgia/Florida Tobacco
Posted on October 26, 2009 at 5:19 AM
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The grower who called me had found the words he couldn't find when the fellow from Philip Morris announced the company no longer would write contracts in Georgia and north Florida, the flue-cured corner of the Southeast.

Tobacco is what's kept him in business. Since the quota buy-out growers in this region have jumped through more hoops than they can count to make companies happy - and PM was one that wanted "exclusive" growers. That kind of commitment - what looks today like unrequited loyalty - could put those growers out of business. Likely will put some of them out of business.

It's a business decision, I'm sure. But the abruptness of it - and the front-end financial load that so many of these growers have invested in order to keep doing business with this company - is the kind of action that puts growers out of business. We've seen this kind of cut-throat activity from poultry companies. Now we're seeing it in tobacco. What's next? Peanuts? My concern is that the more vertically integrated we get in agriculture, the greater the risk growers carry and commodity buyers abuse.

How do we protect ourselves?

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Bell Tolls on Georgia/Florida Tobacco
Posted on October 26, 2009 at 5:19 AM
Decision to pull out of region could be death knell for valuable crop
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About The Writer
Southern Thoughts

Pam Golden, editor of Southern Farmer magazine, has 25 years experience chronicling life in the south.

She served 11 years in daily newspapers and 3 years in weekly newspapers before being released for good behavior to the blessed world of agricultural journalism.

Pam’s agricultural journalism experience started as a freelance writer for Rural Press USA, while she still worked in daily newspapers. After five years, she became editor of Georgia Farmer magazine, waded through a series of changes and mergers in agricultural publishing, and now continues to work for the same parent company, Rural Press Ltd. of Australia, as an employee of its U.S. subsidiary, Farm Progress Cos., of Chicago. Rural Press was acquired by Fairfax Media in 2007.

Pam and her son, Russ, a freshman at Northwest Florida State College, live in Crestview, Fla. As editor of Southern Farmer, Pam writes about agriculture in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Pam earned her bachelor’s degree in communication arts with an emphasis on print journalism from the University of West Florida, Pensacola. She started her studies at Livingston University, now known as the University of West Alabama.


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