Tobacco Blues

s a unknown major funding for this program was provided by the corporation for a public broadcasting and and then

all and and two-thirds of adults who smoke say they wish they could quit. Mr. Casper wanted to scout on his belt and the White House was determined to give it to him. Joe Campbell and the Marlboro man will be out of our children's reach forever. It is not the public policy of this nation to call the back of a drug nor to regulate it as such. Trump's over and the landmark settlement has been reached making tobacco companies one of the most regulated industries in all of one is preferable to the continuation of a decades-long controversy that has failed to produce a constructive outcome for anyone. What they are doing is not hurting the tobacco companies, hurting the farmer.

The one raised the anchor to anchor three anchor. They're going to drive them completely out of business by all its media. There's no other crop that I know of that would produce per acre as much as tobacco. There is no subsidy of tax money that goes toward the tobacco farmer at all. If someone has a reason to smoke it, then I have a reason to grow it. I see millions of millions of people that smoke. I'm a good person. I raised tobacco just for a living. If the government told me that I had to stop farming tobacco, I would just see it from the union. I grew up in a rusty shack. All I owned was a hanging on my back. Only Lord knows how I load. This place called the back of road, but it's home. The only life I ever, ever, ever knew.

But the Lord knows how I load. Tobacco road. As the government health lobby and big tobacco companies battle, the small American farmer who grows tobacco for a living is forgotten. Tobacco has been a steady source of income for the small farmers since the 1930s, when the government established a quota program restricting the amount of tobacco grow. This program helps to maintain the price as farmers receive from tobacco companies. As a cash crop, tobacco pays the farmer's health insurance, property tax, and living costs.

However, this is all changing as tobacco companies are buying more tobacco grown overseas. Farmers are finding that they could possibly lose not only their farms, but their families' heritage and culture. We meet four families at a crossroads. Either they must get out of tobacco and risk losing the farm or gamble on the future of a crop and decline. Bill Mack worked at the local chemical plant to hold on to his family farm. During harvest, he would come home and cut tobacco in the dark. Since his retirement from the plant, Bill and Matty have become leaders in the farm community, fighting for the right to grow tobacco. I was born in 1932 during the Depression.

And my dad, he started raising the biker in 1932 in Shepherd County. He was a sharecropper, but he always said that. If you raise the biker, you could always make a living. So he raised the biker every year during the Depression, and he done real good with it. We thought we was poor, but we lived good. We had plenty to eat, lived on the farm, and at Christmas time, we had a decent Christmas. Bill's family was able to save enough money to send him to college in Alabama, where he met Matty. I went home and I told Mama, I said, Mama, I met a fella. And she said, what kind of fella is he? And that's it. If he's not like your daddy, you leave him alone. I said, well, he's going to come these weekend. So he was scared to death. Yeah. I said, my daddy said, you could come to the house and everything, because they want to meet you. If you're not like my daddy, then you're going to have to leave.

So I got in the car and met him at the bus station, and brought him home and everything. And Mama talked to him and daddy talked to him and everything. And then next day or two, they said, well, I think he'll work out. I'm on up to my house, baby. I'll give you what you want. I'm on up to my house, baby. I'll give you what you want. Back in there, put cans behind the car. I don't know who did it go. We got in the car. Don't go in from the church. As soon we got in that car, you're going to pole easy. Take these cans loose. Use a certain appeal. Stop blowing the horns. Stop blowing the horns. We was in the black section, really. We was Nick Groves back then. We were Nick Groves back then. They didn't call us Nick Groves. They called us Nickers. Those Nickers were keeping too much on the horn. Yeah, that's that it did. Growing the horn. You know how you get married. Growing the horn and the cans. Yeah. But I was used to that. See? But I wasn't. We got here back in touch. We got on that bus.

I didn't have a car. We didn't have a car. We got on a train. We got on that train. We got on that train. We got about two suitcases. We got out of jail. We could get in trouble. When I came up to Kentucky on the train. I saw all this tobacco in the field. I didn't know it was tobacco. I thought, oh, look at all the color green. And here for me that it was tobacco. I'm on up to my horse, baby. I'll give you what you want. I'm on up to my horse, baby. I'll give you what you want. I'm on up to my horse, baby. I'll give you what you want. We broke this farm in 64. During the time Martin Luther King was marching. And the land was very hard to get for blacks.

They would tell us right off. We're not going to sell to no Negro. So we would move on. So we bought this to a real estate. They said, well, there's a land, some a farm in Brandenburg that black people own it. I said, this is the house I've had in mind all the time. And you don't want to talk about it. I said, yes, I do. This is the house. And so this is where we bought and stayed. When we got the farm paid for, then we started saving for our children to go to college. And we educated three of them off the back. Are you ever smoked? I never have smoked. And I never had the desire to smoke. I never had the desire to smoke. And I never had the desire to smoke. We always ask you not to smoke, not to deal with cigarette.

But raising the back is a source of income. The back of half built schools for our children. Library? It built a lot of things. Down through years. The back of been good to America. The back of the house. The back of the house. The back of the house. The back of the house. The back of the house. The back of the house. Tom Greathouse and his family live and work on a large farm belonging to a family trust. Working in partnership with his son, Joseph, Tom grows tobacco to help support three families. This farm was bought by my grandfather, WW Greathouse, and my father inherited it in 1969.

They had warned me to be a farmer. You know, be right there with him and help him out. Great's waited from high school and from there went to UK and got my degree in ag economics. During career day at UK, I didn't go to career day because I knew what I wanted to do and that was far. We've been farming tobacco. It's more and wow. Joseph, I guess, will be the fifth generation. You're basic hornworm. You do a little damage this time of year, not very many of them. Where's the head of? There's his mouth here. There's his mouth out there. Could do a lot of damage if there were enough of them. I live in an apartment in the city.

There's just nothing like being out here, especially when you're during the winter, when it snows, no clouds in the sky. It's real nice, true nice to be out here. It's a lot of hard work, but that's nothing to me. My brother and I have been doing it since we were probably eight, nine, ten years old. I was eight years old and I went with my grandfather and his brother to the stockyards one day. My grandfather's brother smoked. He had some cigarettes in there and I grabbed a couple. I was smoking them and everything up there. I came home and grabbed Joseph and we went under the porch deck and we were under there smoking. I was about eight and Joseph, I guess, was about five. And Joe goes, I'm going to go tell Dad. So he ran down, told Dad Dad we've been smoking. And naturally I didn't believe him at first until I come here. Boy, I miss Bill your breath.

Well, that was a dead giveaway there. I was running up there and grabbed this and it was pretty rough after that. And I don't smoke. Do you have a little bit of a tobacco from time to time? Never did smoke. Tom raised both of his sons with the hope that they would one day take over the farm. I think sometimes I am considered black sheep because I'm not farming. Tomy farming, there's probably not the most chance of that. They're really love being on the farm and I think that's the only way to farm if you're going to do it, really. And I don't have that passion. I have so many ideas that I want to do with the farm. I always tell her, bad meat, I said, that when I get this farm, I said, I'm going to double it. It's not going to be just a farm. It's going to be a corporation and industry. You've got to move.

You've got to move. You've got to move. Ed and Janet Jenkins raised nine children on their farm. With the family divided over the morality of growing tobacco, only two sons helped their father plant and harvest his small tobacco crop. My husband learned from tobacco from his dad back then. We were just small farmers and tobacco was the crop that would bring the most money in to pay bills with. And it was a good thing then. But now we find ourselves in trouble with the tobacco crop. It's given people cancer, so they claim it's the sanits claim that it's a proven fact that tobacco gives smoking and tobacco products give people cancer today. So it would be, to me, it would be against my conscience to grow a crop that's killing somebody.

My husband has gotten to a place where he feels like that that's all he can do work with the tobacco. I kind of like being busy and actually I work on a place. So, yeah, we enjoy this hard work. My husband started smoking when he was about 15, he said. And he's 69, so he's been smoking a long time. The whole family have tried to give him to get out of tobacco. When we talk to him about it, the first thing he wants to know is what can we raise that would put in as much money as the tobacco does. That's the way we got pay, we got cattle, we have the garden.

And now that the organic farming is opening up, last year we did a great job. And this year I'm hoping that he will back off of the tobacco sum and go into more into the organic farming. I'm hoping that he will see that the tobacco is killing us all. And pursuit of his dreams Steve Smith took over the family farm. But the income didn't cover the running costs of a small operation and Steve almost lost the farm. As soon as you can walk, you're picking up leaves. And then you start playing with these two old when you're kid and it's a long time. I don't know probably.

Eight or nine. When I can finally learn how to cut. Just watch the grownups. I always enjoyed it that way. I always did enjoy it. But in the last few years you know it's been killing. All this tobacco talk about, you know, trying to do way to program all that is kind of depressing. You know, we don't know what to do next. Steve's father and mother have worked on farms all their lives. Aware of the difficulties of farming, they encourage Steve to pursue a different career. Well, because you need to talk. He wanted to go dark, textural school. I was really pleased because I didn't want him to farm. I said, Steve and I need to just go on and do this. And I don't want you farming. He said, Mom, he said, that is what I want to do. He said, I love farming. And I said, but it is so hard. I said, I was raised that way.

And I said, it's a hard life. It's a good life, but it's a hard life. He said, Mom, farming is what I want to do. Never see it. See, I do it. Come on. Hey. Pretty wobbly. That's all right, Mom. I thought it was a good life. Never see it. Growing up, I'd tobacco farmer. I knew I wanted to farm, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be a tobacco farmer. It just costs so much money. Your cost to produce is astronomical. In a good year, you'd break even. That'd be a good year. You worked yourself to death and really abused your land, and you broke even. Do you smoke?

I enjoy an occasional cigar. So do you think that it should be outlawed or do you think people should have a choice? I think it's a choice is important. People should have a choice. If I had a crop, it would be something close to tobacco, I would grow it. But the way it is here, nowadays, you take our health insurance. In my taxes and my insurance, there's not a crop that you could name. It will just pay those on this farm right here. I know you don't think time for vacation is enough. Well, death will never take time. Vacation in this land.

Well, yeah. Come to high school and stay home. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know where we're going. I don't know where we're going. I'm torn. In a way I do want to find better crops than tobacco. But at the same time, having grown up with it all my life, it's one of those rare crops that brings people together. Every step of the way, every process of the crop, it just involves a lot of people. It's a handmade crop. It was a family and neighbors and kin folks and friends that helped each other. It strengthened those bonds and of kinship and friendship. It was an opportunity for people to help one another.

I mean, even the usage of tobacco is a sociable thing. It's meant to be sociable. And for the Native Americans, it was a spiritual thing. It was an aromatic herb, very spiritual, that we have taken and abused. It's like we abuse everything else we can get our hands on in this society. So I'm sorry for that abuse, but as a crop and as a culture, it's been very beneficial to me and my people and my community and to this country. There's no other crop like tobacco, nothing but marijuana.

And we talk about tobacco like it's not a legal crop. It is a legal crop. I like President Kennedy, as he gave his inauguration speech, asked not what the country can do for you, but what can you do for the country? If the country can work, if we don't have work, we cannot contribute to the country. The country will have a contribute to us, and we don't want that. When the Food and Drug Administration began their fight to label nicotine a drug, many farmers banded together to protect tobacco from regulation. Tobacco growers gather here in Lexington's warehouse district. We don't want the FDA on farm. Farmers, fearing for their future, aren't about to let the President visit burly country without some feedback. To let us go on and raise this tobacco, just like we've always done.

The convoy, two dozen trucks, loaded with Kentucky's top cash crop at about 40 farmers, heads for the beginning of President Clinton's motorcade. Nobody's looking out the window. As the motorcade zooms by, the farmers preside with waving signs, the first lady waves from the limo. The government is trying to restrict you on something that there's no law against. I would probably have a pretty severe following out with an individual that called me a drug dealer. If it's regulated, my family is going to suffer consequences, so I don't think they should really get on the people that are growing it, regulate the people that are growing it. I think they ought to regulate the people who are making the cigarettes. You get out here and don't drug. You come in and shoot up everybody. That's why the law is like it is. Everybody's only drugs. I ain't never seen nobody shooting nobody calling smoke in the cigarette.

We won't FDA to stay where they are then washed and leave the farmers alone. I don't know how to do that. See when you cut it down low, you get out, you save all that. A lot of the cutters don't do that. But that's for being a woman, we always had to save men don't see it. One, two, three, four. Cutting the back of the rhythm, cutting the back of the rhythm. Once you get your rhythm, you can cut. You just cut and hear, saying like it, like that.

As fast as you cut it off, you put it on a stick. Like this fast, you can cut it off, like that. When I got here, he would never let me cut no tobacco. He would let me in the field to cut no tobacco. I said, I know how to cut tobacco. No, no. So, he worked on Sundays, so I told the kids. I said, you all stay here and keep the little ones. I'm going to hit Mr. Haines and cut the back of the rhythm. Whatever the biggest mistake I've made, I cut that tobacco. He said you're doing a good job. I think I cut over three hundred, three hundred, so I'm sticks that day for the first time. And then I started cutting the back of him. So, I had to prove myself that I could do it, you know. He thought I couldn't do it, you know. He took me in to cut the back of the rhythm. I talked to him and said, I'm an action man. I was on the town doing best I can.

Lord, Lord, I'm an action man. Lord, Lord, I'm an action man. I'm Kimmy in the morning, Kimmy in the night. I'm doing my love and you're the whole of my life. Lord, Lord, I'm an action man. Lord, Lord, I'm an action man. How many points is a good stick work until we're doing both? Oh, and then you take up points for him. Inflars, you get fine then. That's it. That's good. You can have fun now. You got it right. Oh, oh, oh.

You got it right. Nothing else I'm out there. Be honest with you. I'm far as raising tobacco. I'm about tired of that. I stay on because dad's here. He's raising it. That's his. Like I said, that's his living. So as long as he's raising it, I guess I'll be here to help him with it. My kids didn't go into form and mostly because as the trouble started into the background, it started to be in accused of causing cancer and causing the different things. And the prices went down really to the point that it was not going to be feasible for all the family members to make a living on the farm, then they decided that they would get jobs

to survive. Looking back from, say, 40 years ago and now that the back of crap was nothing at the same, you grew your tobacco organically. It was a completely different crop then. People smoked. You never heard a lung cancer or anything like that. Nothing but the best for Mr. Ricardo. Thank you. Good to see you. It's all going to be. You see how easy it is to keep a man happy? Well, I hope. I've been puffing, puffing, puffing, puffing. But still, I can't seem to get enough. Viceroy.

The thinking man's filled up and the smoking man's taste. Every tobacco farmer wants to come back to that word, choice, ultimate choice. I know tobacco's not good for it yet. I don't use it that never did. It's not good for you. But you know neither is McDonald's. Nobody makes nobody keep smoke. You can stop when you want to. Vigorado John. After I quit playing football, I met this girl and she smoked.

And I just got caught up in it. I don't smoke around that. I don't think Dad's ever seen me smoke. And we don't talk about it because I know he really doesn't approve. I know he doesn't approve of me doing it. And he knows he really can't come up to me and say, they stop it right now. Hopefully Tommy doesn't smoke much. Maybe it's a social kind of thing that he maybe smokes a few cigarettes with the guys. I probably smoke about a pack and a half a day. On real bad days, I probably smoke two packs, two and a half packs. That's the lifestyle that he chose and I'm not going to say, well, I don't like you smoking. I can feel that I don't have the energy that I used to have. It's hard for me to run, breathe, things like that. I feel like that I get sick easier since I smoked.

And hopefully that I'm quitting. And I hope I do quit. I'm not going to say that I am because it's been only been a week. But I hope I do quit and start feeling a little better. When I say he's addicted, he says, well, I've been smoked a long time and I can quit when I want to. That's what I said. He quit if he wanted to. That's so far he hadn't wanted to. Do you believe that? No. No, I don't believe it. Because I believe that with all the talk and all the people that he has seen and everything, I just can't see how he could want to still smoke.

Well, I won't say it's good and I won't say bad. But I should be sent me as old. And I know I'm since I was 14, you think? I won't say bad. I do it. I won't say good or wrong. No comment. Do you worry about him? Well, I think he's already got in for Zilla. My husband's one of these type of persons that is long as he can tolerate the pain. It's okay. And although he has to suffer the consequences, our family has to suffer with him. I tell him every once in a while he's a little selfish for doing what he's doing. But that doesn't work either.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Around Thanksgiving time, farmers prepare for the yearly auction at the tobacco warehouse. At this time, the tobacco was weighed and farmers find out whether or not they produced enough tobacco. The check they received to be less than last year, they don't make their weight. I get nervous a little bit. The nervousness I get would be, am I going to make them a weight? You're allowed on a specific farm, so many pounds.

We want to fill that card. And if we don't fill that card, it's not good. It's just a heartbreak. We want to, what did we do wrong? So we're going to go back and see, did we use the wrong variety? Did we not get enough casing in tobacco? Did we not spray for a blue mold in time? So to not make my weight is just not good money wise, but not good emotionally either. I don't know. Since I'm out here, baby, cause I'm all alone. I haven't got me nobody just to care my smoking on.

Won't you just smoke my cigarette, baby? Smoke it all night long. Throw my cigarette, baby, until you make my good old-ass shit. Going up the country, get my asses home. Women ran this part of town, gonna let my asses fall. Won't you just smoke my cigarette, baby? Smoke it all night long. Throw my cigarette, baby, until you make my good old ass shit. Backer comes and cares about the farmers because without the farmers they won't have no tobacco.

Where are you going to get it from? And the tobacco that comes in is not as good as out of tobacco. This is where it gets complicated, but we tried prohibition in the 20s and 30s and discovered that it doesn't work. If the American tobacco farmer doesn't raise it, it's gonna come from somewhere else, South America or Africa. Concerns me that's tobacco companies support the overseas production. And although I think we produce the highest quality barley in the world, that if we don't satisfy their needs, then they're gonna have to go somewhere else. We've already got a apple happens on the way.

We'll go too. Felt like smoked, smoked, smoked. I think we'll be back tomorrow instead of MP3. I think we'll be back tomorrow. We'll be back tomorrow. o'clock tonight, too, a pound and that's what's been giving all your love, so we're quite pleased and hopefully it'll stay that way for the rest of the year. You work all year into BACA and this is the day that we wait you know for the big thing that happened and it happens we got we get a check and then we go back home and plan for next year and you're just a cycle

all year round, right lady? That's right. We're not getting the money we deserve. The only thing we can do is take what they give us and be sad as BACA we don't even lose the form of lose every time. They give us $1.92 and they make a hundred times, five hundred times that much all for that bail of the BACA and that money comes through the window and you don't get it, that check is already detonated. We do get our check but they owe so much money to somewhere else that they got a lien on that money when it comes to that window. So the BACA farm is a slave and he's though delicate, he's going to raise it next year.

Although he didn't get nothing this year, he's dedicated to the farm and he's going to stay with it because that farm came to him through his grand family. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey. Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. For years, the back of the company is denied adding the nicotine to the back of the cigarette. I should say. Mm-hmm. So, usually, they're not doing it. But then it's coming out that they have done it for years. They should not be allowed to do that because they, if nicotine is addicted, well, I guess it is addicted, but if it's addicted, and they put more in it to make a person more addicted to it, that's not right. I don't think the back of it is addicted. No, no more than food we eat, drinks we drink, and stuff like that. No more than that. Even though all this research has been done showing that nicotine is addictive, you don't

believe the research. No. Why? I know my grandmother, she smoked until she was 105, and a lot of people still smoking. And they're 90 some more years old, and it hadn't bothered them. They had researched this and that, and they were thinking, to me, I don't believe all that. I believe tobacco is a health hazard, no question. And again, because of the abuse of it, and by the tobacco companies too, they're poisoning of their product with the various chemicals and additives, and then the chemicals that the farmers are putting on it too is making a pretty toxic product. We are against teenage smoking, which the none of them do it. I'm not happy with the tobacco companies if they've lied about targeting of teenage

smokers. There's no excuse for that. During our annual meeting, I stood up and introduced a resolution that Farm Bureau stands behind the law that teenagers, you know, individuals under 18 should not smoke. Tobacco companies have a pretty negative image. I think they have heard our image so, if we can differentiate us from the tobacco company that's going to help a whole lot, I don't see how, you know, again, we're part of the part of the cigarette, and I don't see how, I don't know the definition to get us away from that. The most important thing for the future of the farm is for it to be early-loved and worked

by somebody that really wants to be a farmer and produce all they can and preserve the farm for the next generation. I would like to live up to what my dad has done when my grandfather's done. I hope I do live up to everybody's standards in my family. We will always raise tobacco until it becomes totally illegal to buy, sell, that's when the choice will be made, but until then our family, my dad or myself, and whoever will always grow tobacco. I think Joseph might be making a mistake, not a mistake like right now, but I think as

far as the future goes, as far as tobacco, I think he might be making a mistake. I don't think in the future that it will be there, and I'm worried about what he's going to do after that. So there's a lot of workshops and conventions and such on-arganic gardening that's going to be from January through March and April.

We raised beans last year, you didn't get to come out and see the beans last year, did you? I didn't get to do much of anything last year. Come on, we get everybody, everybody for me to get one, that's it. Have my drink? Your drink? I don't see your drinks. I'm going to move it. It's a great soul. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. The day before is the family. You know, when we were all growing up there was an abundance of cheap labor. So what could we do? We could raise the back end, and they didn't have to hire people for ten dollars and I are going to go out and do the work. So what could you do? You can make a profit, you can raise the family. Today, you don't have that. Knowing what I don't know about the debacle, how it affects people, and like I said for this is the reason I feel that it's not what I would want to do again.

If I didn't really feel so strongly about that it really is an unnecessary killer of people today, probably I would still do it because it had its good times. We had a lot of, we were together as a family because we all worked up and I really believe that that's why that we have the closeness and the togetherness that we do today, in part because of working together as a family, although it wasn't in tobacco fields. It is a rich heritage and I'm really proud of the family that they're finding a way to adapt and make it work today because the old ways won't work and we've got to find the new ones. My children feel like that they would rather that daddy didn't farm tobacco. We know that that is not right.

We love the person, but we hate the wrong way of the girl. You know you can love somebody, but you don't have to love what they're doing. It's $20 for a lunch and dinner vote. Thank you. Thank you. It's a good deal. The back of that are pretty good to hear. We sound like Chevrolet. What do you say you want? I don't know. Is that right? You get a good friend? Yeah? Oh 92. Yeah. I got down there. How do you do? I got down there doing their thing as big money, but how do you take your expenses out? You really? Yeah, you may. We didn't get no raise. No, we didn't get no raise. I want to meet you.

Hey. Thank you. Long last. Nice meeting you too. I've admired you so long. Oh, thank you, dear. Thank you. And your farm is where? In Trimble County. Why are you here today? No, I'm not even married. You're not married? Well, my goodness, what's wrong? I don't know. I don't know. You need a woman so you she can help you to farm and boss you around, honey. I know. I get the honor of introducing a lady that really doesn't need to be introduced. This matty is near and dear to all of us. But I do have one little thing up here, Matty, that I want to read. It says, Community Farm in the last presents Matty Mack with the 19th, 19th, and 17th Membership Recruitment Award for her efforts in being county. People look at me and they say, that's that lady that fights so hard for tobacco. That's real nice. When I meet the big farmers, I am congratulated by them. They don't see me as a black woman.

They see the hurt and they hear the cry in my voice. Community Farm Alliance presents Kenya. They really don't know anything about the little man. He hurts just to make a living. And so I have to wake him up. If you sleep, you know, you don't sleep when I'm around. I wake you up. I knew that it was not good to just be dependent on tobacco. So that's when I got serious about the vegetable business and started researching it on my own. I started hearing about sustainable farming and organic farming. And I knew somehow that I'd found my colon. Excellent.

I didn't know they would get that big. I mean, one of these is going to fill a bush all. I don't know how I'll get them to town. It'd be a truckload of just pumpkin. The problem that I was having all along was marketing. I could farm well and I could produce crops. It was having difficulty marketing them because I was too small. I also decided to start a vegetable co-op. And just immediately overnight had a waiting list of customers. And it's been like that ever since. I'm glad you got this. Oh, you're good. Tomato, green beans, some squash, cucumber, pepper, and everything. Yeah, I'm good.

Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. And these are so good. Yeah. Red. Yeah, I can see how many of you have here. You have two. I discovered that there's huge support out there in the community. People that want to support farmers that are looking for a better way to farm. Been working well. We make a good living. We're not going to get rents, but we're making money.

I don't know what's going to happen to the tobacco farmer or the tobacco crop. You know, if our history is any indication of our future, it's been a really sad history of the destruction of farms and farm communities. And I expect that we'll continue and look critics of tobacco. Don't bother to look at our heritage or culture. And they're ready to throw it out, you know, and they're throwing the baby out with the bath water. The best people I know are tobacco farmers. Tobacco companies continue to increase their overseas production. Over 125,000 tobacco farmers are projected to lose a significant portion of their income over the next five years.

Winston's sale, new portal can't make them bring in this month's rent. Hey, now I have your hood and news. Kentucky got a bad case of tobacco blues. Just like my father, I worked this land. For lots of time, enough to meet the man. And this weed is evil, said the FDA. Now they want to come and burn it all away. Lord, help me make a man. It's brown skin, we're going to be my aunt. And I'm standing here accused of spreading these tobacco blues. Major funding for this program was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Thank you.