Cultivation of tobacco
The cultivation of tobacco usually takes place annually. The tobacco is germinated in cold frames or hotbeds and then transplanted to the field until it matures. It is grown in warm climates with rich, well-drained soil. About 4.2 million hectares of tobacco were under cultivation worldwide in 2000, yielding over seven million tonnes of tobacco.
Sowing and growth
Tobacco seeds are scattered onto the surface of the soil, as their germination is activated by light. In colonial Virginia, seedbeds were fertilized with wood ash or animal manure. Seedbeds were then covered with branches to protect the young plants from frost damage, and the plants were left alone until around April.In the 19th century, young plants came under increasing attack from certain types of flea beetles, Epitrix cucumeris or Epitrix pubescens, which destroyed half the U.S. tobacco crops in 1876. In the years afterward, many experiments were attempted and discussed to control the flea beetle. By 1880, growers discovered that replacing the branches with a frame covered with thin fabric effectively protected plants from the beetle. This practice spread, becoming ubiquitous in the 1890s.
In Asia, Oceania, and the Indian subcontinent, the tobacco cutworm is a great pest to the tobacco plant. The caterpillar's vigorous eating habits can cause up to 23-50% in yield losses, resulting in economic strain to the local agricultural economies. The cabbage looper is also known to have caused damage to tobacco plants in North Carolina, which became a concern as farmers lacked a suitable method for controlling the caterpillars.
Shade tobacco is the practice of growing the plants under a screen of cheesecloth fabric. The thin leaves were used for the outer wrappings of cigars.
Harvest
Tobacco can be harvested in several ways. In the oldest method, the entire plant is harvested at once by cutting off the stalk at the ground with a sickle. In the nineteenth century, bright tobacco began to be harvested by pulling individual leaves off the stalk as they ripened. As the plants grow, they usually require topping and suckering. "Topping" is the removal of the tobacco flowers while "suckering" is the pruning out of leaves that are otherwise unproductive. Both procedures ensure that as much of the plant's energy as possible focuses on producing the large leaves that are harvested and sold. "Cropping", "Pulling", and "Priming" are terms for removing mature leaves from tobacco plants. Leaves are cropped as they ripen, from the bottom to the top of the stalk.The first crop of leaves located near the base of the tobacco stalk are called "sand lugs" in more rural southern tobacco states. They are called "sand lugs" because these leaves are close to the ground and get splashed with sand and clay when heavy rains hit the soil. Sand lugs weigh the most, and are most difficult to work with. Their weight is due to their large size and the added weight of soil; slaves lugged each stack to the "stringer" or "looper", typically a female slave, who bundled each stack of leaves. Eventually, workers carried the tobacco and placed it on sleds or trailers.
As the industrial revolution approached America, the harvesting wagons that transported leaves were equipped with man-powered stringers, an apparatus that used twine to attach leaves to a pole. In modern times, large fields are harvested by a single piece of farm equipment, though topping the flower and in some cases the plucking of immature leaves is still done by hand.
Some farmers still use "tobacco harvesters". They are not very efficient yet highly cost-effective for harvesting premium and rare strains of tobacco. Modern harvester trailers for in-demand crops are pulled by diesel-fueled tractors. "Croppers" or "primers" pull the leaves off in handfuls and pass these to the "stringer" or "looper", which bundles the leaves to a four-sided pole with twine. These poles are hung until the harvester is full. The poles are then placed in a much larger wagon to be pulled by diesel tractors to their destination. For rare tobaccos they are often cured on the farm. Traditionally, the slaves who cropped and pulled had a particularly tough time with the first pull of the large, dirty, base leaves. The leaves slapped their faces and dark tobacco sap, which dries into a dark gum, covered their bodies, and then soil stuck to the gum.
The croppers were men, and the stringers, who were seated on the higher elevated seats, were women and children. The harvesters had places for one team of ten workers: eight people cropping and stringing, plus a packer who moved the heavy strung poles of wet green tobacco from the stringers and packed them onto the pallet section of the harvester, plus a horseman. The outer seats were suspended from the harvester - slung out over to fit into the rows of tobacco. As these seats were suspended it was important to balance the weight of the two outside teams. Having too heavy or light a person in an unbalanced combination often resulted in the harvester tipping over especially when turning around at the end of a row. Water tanks were a common feature on the harvester due to heat and danger of dehydration.
Global production
Trends
Production of tobacco leaf increased by 40% between 1971, during which 4.2 million tons of leaf were produced, and 1997, during which 5.9 million tons of leaf were produced. According to the Food and Agriculture organization of the UN, tobacco leaf production is expected to hit 7.1 million tons by 2010. This number is a bit lower than the record high production of 1992, during which 7.5 million tons of leaf were produced. The production growth was almost entirely due to increased productivity by developing nations, where production increased by 128%.During that same time period, production in developed countries actually decreased. China's increase in tobacco production was the single biggest factor in the increase in world production. China's share of the world market increased from 17% in 1971 to 47% in 1997. This growth can be partially explained by the existence of a high import tariff on foreign tobacco entering China. While this tariff has been reduced from 64% in 1999 to 10% in 2004, it still has led to local, Chinese cigarettes being preferred over foreign cigarettes because of their lower cost.
Every year 6.7 million tons of tobacco are produced throughout the world. The top producers of tobacco are China, India, Brazil and the United States.
Major producers
United States
In the United States, as of 2014 North Carolina was the largest producer of tobacco, with around 1,800 tobacco farms employing 30,000 workers yielding in 400 million pounds of the crop annually.In the US, the decline in the number of smokers, the end of the Tobacco Transition Payment Program in 2014, and competition from growers in other countries, made tobacco farming economics more challenging as of 2015.
China
At the peak of global tobacco production, there were 20 million rural Chinese households producing tobacco on 2.1 million hectares of land. The vast majority of tobacco production is intended for the national market. While it is the major crop for millions of Chinese farmers, growing tobacco is not as profitable as cotton or sugar cane. This is because the Chinese government sets the market price. While this price is guaranteed, it is lower than the natural market price because of the lack of market risk. To further control tobacco in their borders, China founded the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration in 1982. STMA controls tobacco production, marketing, imports, and exports; and contributed 1.3% to national income between 1982 and 2004.Brazil
In Brazil around 135,000 family farmers cite tobacco production as their main economic activity. Tobacco has never exceeded 0.7% of the country's total cultivated area. In the southern regions of Brazil, Virginia and Amarelinho flue-cured tobacco as well as Burley and Dark air-cured tobacco are produced. These types of tobacco are used for cigarettes. In the northeast, darker, air-cured and sun-cured tobacco are grown. These types of tobacco are used for cigars, twists and dark-cigarettes.Brazil's government has made attempts to reduce the production of tobacco but has not had a successful systematic anti-tobacco farming initiative. Brazil's government, however, provides small loans for family farms, including those that grow tobacco, through the Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar.