RALEIGH, N.C. - For burley-tobacco farmers in mountain counties, life isn't easy this year.
The costs of fuel, fertilizer and labor are high. The selling price of burley is down from what it once was. And the record-breaking drought has hurt the current crop.

Over the past 10 years, the production of burley tobacco in North Carolina has steadily declined, and recently, many farmers in the western part of the state are taking federal buyouts and moving into organic vegetables or other crops.
This year's challenges will only contribute to that trend.
"When you don't have any rain, it's hard to get anything to grow, - said Callie Birdsell, an agriculture extension agent in Watauga County".
Burley tobacco, which is added to cigarette blends with other varieties of tobacco, was once the economic engine of rural western counties. The crop is well suited to the region's small farms with their hilly terrain - in contrast to flue-cured tobacco, which has traditionally been grown in the large, rolling fields in the Piedmont and the eastern part of the state.
After the federal tobacco buyout, some farmers who had always grown flue-cured tobacco began experimenting with burley, and some continue to do so. But that has not nearly made up for the sharp decline in burley growers in the mountains. Joe McNeil, 71, a retired schoolteacher and principal, has been farming tobacco since he was a teenager. He has a 50-acre farm outside of Boone, and he has seen other local farmers abandon tobacco in favor of other crops. So far, McNeil has bucked the trend, reserving about two acres this year for tobacco.
But he said he doesn't do it for the profit.
"It has been the most profitable thing that can be done on a mountain farm," McNeil said, referring to the years when burley would fetch $2 a pound. It now sells for about $1.60. "It is not for the money today. ... The margin is very narrow now, as compared to what it was 30 years ago."
The costs of producing burley have also increased. In addition to the rising costs of fuel and fertilizer, hiring manual laborers has become more expensive, because the minimum wage has gone up and tobacco farmers in the mountains must compete with Christmas-tree growers for labor.
Even demographic trends play a role.
"One of the biggest exports in the mountains is children," Birdsell said. "When they go off to college, they usually don't come back."
That means that there is no one to take over tobacco farms that have been in families for generations.
The decline of burley tobacco in North Carolina has not hurt Reynolds American, a spokesman for the company said.
"Bottom line, you've got fewer tobacco growers, period, be it flue-cured or burley, but we've got good relationships with our contract growers," said the spokesman, David Howard.
In addition to its contract farmers in North Carolina and other tobacco states, Reynolds buys some of its tobacco overseas. How much depends on year-to-year growing conditions and the quality of the leaf, Howard said.
McNeil said that it is difficult for any longtime tobacco farmer to start doing something else. For him, the reason for continuing is not nostalgia for the tobacco itself, which he noted is an increasingly unpopular product. Rather, he said, he likes the whole process.

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