Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler sits down each week with Southern Farm Network’s Rhonda Garrison to discuss “Today’s Topic.”
Flue-cured tobacco growers in North Carolina recently approved an assessment to support the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina’s efforts to promote the interests of its farmers. The assessment was approved on 88 percent of ballots in a mail-in referendum. It needed a two-thirds majority to pass.
Growers approved an assessment of up to 15 cents per hundred pounds of flue-cured tobacco sold in North Carolina. But initially, the association will collect only 10 cents per hundred pounds. The assessment will begin this year and will be collected when farmers sell their tobacco. Tobacco buyers will submit collected funds to the NCDA&CS for distribution to the association.
Until now, tobacco was one of the few commodities in the state without a checkoff program to support advocacy work. Last year, the General Assembly passed a bill authorizing the Tobacco Growers Association to conduct the referendum.
This assessment joins existing checkoff programs that support tobacco research and export promotion.
Click on the audio player below to listen to Commissioner Troxler and Rhonda discuss the new tobacco checkoff program.
[Audio:http://info.ncagr.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Troxler_7-15.mp3|titles=Today’s Topic for July 15]
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