There was a time when swirling leafy clumps of tobacco plants were found back-to-back to back along Kentucky’s farming landscape. However, that’s not the case today. With the health impacts of smoking well documented and consumption falling steadily over the years, full-time-only-burley growers are hard to find. A father and son are still making that work on farmland on the Fayette-Clark County line.
Ben Webb describes the scene as rows and rows of brown-dried tobacco hang from the rafters of the 100-year-plus-old barn. He and his dad Benny are fully involved in the burley growing business. The 62-year-old Webb said he was about raised in a tobacco barn.
“When you got off the school bus, you went to work in the fields and you were right there with you family stripping tobacco and these little strip rooms…I mean I was in a crib when I was raised up in tobacco in the stripping room,” said Ben Webb.
Webb said his family was part of sharecropping for three generations where the landlord allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. They didn’t take the federal tobacco buyout and continued to grow the leaf. These years later the Webbs rent from three landowners and do the work to raise the crop. And it’s been working out.
“It’s all in the yield. This is very productive soil. And we’ve yielded 3000 plus..we shoot for three and done over that many times and that’s what’s kept us in the game,” said Webb.
That’s 3000 pounds per acre. Benny Webb said he began to lose some interest in tobacco production until his uncle came back to work on the farm along with his 33-year-old son Ben.
“I came back to the farm I guess about ten years ago and I do think there’s long-term stability here for me. That’s why I have kind of got back into it. I went back to school to finish my degree. I did that as kind of a back-up plan,” said Webb.
The Webbs say tobacco companies have been willing to pay more, realizing inflationary costs for farmers. Plus Ben Webb said the fact that there are so few Kentucky growers today works in their favor.
“There’s so few of us but that kind of opens the window for us to kind of ramp up production…the people that are still doing it..have an opportunity to continue growing and I think that also offers some longevity too. Cause there’s so few farmers that are doing it, that kind of keeps us in the ring,” said Webb.
In fact, the ag census figures show Kentucky had more than 59,000 farms growing tobacco in 1992. Today UK Ag economist Will Snell said that figure hovers around 1000.
Webb said he could see himself diversifying some on the farmland by growing vegetables, adding there’s kind of a niche market near Lexington. But he anticipates that remaining secondary to tobacco.
Ben and Benny Webb spent some time growing hemp. They started with three acres and then ended some five years later with 50 acres of hemp. Ben says the fourth year was real profitable, but then Benny says the fifth year was a different story.
“So, why did you decide to get out of hemp? Asked Weku’s Stu Johnson
“Cause they didn’t pay us our last year of it. They filed bankruptcy and they never paid their growers,” said Webb.
Ben said the hemp market was flooded and the excess was simply too much.
Asked about the health impacts of cigarette smoking, Webb said bourbon is big in Kentucky, saying, quote, “alcohol has its problems too and I feel that people make their own choices.”
And the Webbs say marijuana is smoked but doesn’t seem to get the same attention as cigarettes. If one day Kentucky legalizes recreational marijuana, Ben Webb’s not sure there would be an abundance of fields growing pot.
“Talking to some professors at UK I think if marijuana does become legal here it will be people who have extensive backgrounds in greenhouse operations that will probably be the ones growing it,” said Webb.
And Webb said there’s still research to be done for alternative uses for tobacco, calling it one of the most genetic modifiable plants.
For now the Webb family will continue to grow tobacco. And this season Benny Webb says the leaf had good color early, then dry conditions hit, but the yield has been very good. And both men say the price per pound is the highest ever, partly because of increased expenses to grow tobacco. So, no major changes on the farm for Benny and Ben Webb next season.
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