By JORDAN STRICKLER

Kentucky Correspondent

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Bluegrass State will plant its fewest tobacco acres on record this year, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Services (NASS) Prospective Plantings report.

Burley tobacco growers in the state intend to set 57,000 acres for harvest, down 6,000 from 2017. For all burley-producing states, growers intend to set 72,900 acres, down 8,600 from last year.

This is only a fraction of production from the 1990s, when burley acreages peaked above 200,000 for several years. The crop has been on a downhill slide nationally since the 2004 Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act ended federal tobacco quotas and price supports.

NASS estimated that producers in 2018 intend to plant 12,000 acres of dark-fired tobacco in Kentucky, up 500 from 2017, and estimated 5,000 acres to be set to dark-air tobacco, which is down 1,000 acres from last year.

The primary use of burley is cigarette production, blends and pouch tobacco, while dark is used for blends such as snuff, and pipe and cigar tobacco.

“Supply and demand is the biggest decider in acres grown, and demand is just down,” says Pat Raines, president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Assoc. “Acres are also down because there is cheaper tobacco being imported from other countries, which undercuts that grown at home.”

Health concerns are one of the primary drivers behind decreasing demand. Almost half of the U.S. adult population smoked cigarettes in the 1950s and 1960s. That number has plummeted today to around 18 percent. And while a few tobacco farmers are switching to dark-fired tobacco, as some see it as a safer product, it is a limited market and not enough to replace the declining burley crop.

Increasing taxes are also playing a part. A bill that has passed through the Kentucky Senate is proposing a 50-cent per pack tax, one of many taxes which have been proposed as a partial solution for the state’s billions of dollars in state pension obligations. A $1 tax has also been proposed, like one that went into law in Oklahoma last month.

“The cigarette tax increase is a win-win-win solution for Oklahoma – a health win that will reduce smoking and save lives, a financial win that will raise much-needed revenue and a political win that polls show is popular with voters,” said Matthew L. Myers, president, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

“We applaud Governor (Mary) Fallin and legislative champions for their leadership in fighting tobacco use, the No. 1 cause of preventable death.”

“Anytime you have a tax like that, you will see a reduction in demands,” said Raines. “When you have a reduction in demand, production gets hurt. Tobacco is still on a declining scale, and I don’t see a comeback anytime in the near future.”

NASS reports the number of corn acres to also be lower, down 40,000 acres to 1.28 million. Soybean acreage is expected up 50,000 to 2 million acres. Hay is also expected to be down, declining by 80,000 from last year to 2.1 million acres.