The Virginia Tobacco Communities Project provides a case study of the building of non-traditional relationships using credible information and integrity in process and communication. Three primary purposes framed the Tobacco Communities Project: 1) To understand in depth how tobacco farming is embedded in a cultural, political and economic context in order to better understand the interests of tobacco-growing communities; 2) To build a model for facilitating tobacco policy change via the establishment of constructive relationships with tobacco growers and others with a fundamental interest in tobacco production; and 3) To begin to create a model which allows stakeholders in a tobacco state to reframe and democratize the public debate on the economic and health issues surrounding tobacco production.

Representatives from tobacco-growing communities - including tobacco-growing families, warehouse operators, agribusiness advocates, extension agents, economic development officials, university researchers, state agency personnel, and representatives from local and state government - came together in a 16-month process initiated by health interests to examine the question of expanding economic opportunity in tobacco-growing communities. Five "Roundtable" meetings involving participation of these diverse interests led to new understandings and spawned additional efforts. As a direct result of these roundtable meetings and additional efforts, a number of policy actions directed at assisting tobacco-growing communities were taken.

Background

The economic dependence on tobacco experienced by tobacco-growing families and communities is no less real than the nicotine dependence faced by individual tobacco users. Yet much less attention is paid to the economic dependence, and there is little support in the form of research and proven strategies to assist communities to diversify their economies and decrease their dependence upon tobacco. Strategies must be developed to help these communities cope with pending losses to the economic base of the community and to address real and perceived threats to community culture.

Economic analyses show major changes, particularly in increased world tobacco production, continuing their twenty-year progression in tobacco communities. Even in these communities' "best case" scenario from their own perspective, where American tobacco continues to be grown and marketed successfully as the premium tobacco on the world market, the prediction is for far fewer growers to be working increasingly larger holdings. This will force many family farmers into other on-farm and off-farm activities.

Health advocates in tobacco-producing states inevitably face the question of how their efforts will adversely affect the livelihoods of growers, and thus the economic well-being of tobacco-growing communities and tobacco producing states. Health advocates need to educate themselves to a working understanding of tobacco economics to be able to answer questions intelligently and to advocate for realistic adjustment strategies. Tobacco states' legislators face genuine dilemmas regarding tobacco policy, and health advocates can create opportunities to contribute to the public discussion. The Virginia Tobacco Communities Project provides an example of how Virginia health advocates were able to accomplish three objectives: first, to learn from growers and other tobacco interests of their needs, concerns, and interests; second, to build non-traditional relationships with these tobacco interests; and third, to affect statewide agricultural and rural economic development policy.

The Virginia Tobacco Communities Project Process

The initial task was to acquire funding and to put together a project team which would lead this initiative. The Institute for Quality Health (IQ Health), part of the University of Virginia (U. Va.) Health Services Foundation, led a team of health advocates which also included the American Cancer Society and the Virginia Department of Health. Recognizing that tobacco-growing interests would be skeptical about the motivations of health advocates, IQ Health sought the services of professional, independent facilitators from U. Va.'s Institute for Environmental Negotiation (IEN). An economist from U. Va. was brought on board to carry out an economic analysis of the tobacco industry in Virginia. Funding was solicited from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Once funding was acquired in August of 1994, the first step was to gain entry into the Virginia tobacco-growing community of farmers, extension agents, university researchers, government entities and associated organizations. A fortuitous circumstance was the existence of a Joint Legislative Study Committee on Alternative Strategies for Assisting Tobacco Farmers, chaired by the state delegate representing Charlottesville, the home of the University of Virginia. The existence of this state legislative committee provided both credibility to project efforts and an influential receptor for project recommendations. Members of the project team attended an early two-day session of this Committee involving visits to a tobacco farm, a tobacco warehouse and auction, and a tobacco processing plant. The informal nature of those visits provided numerous opportunities to discuss the Virginia Tobacco Communities Project with potential participants and to make the personal contacts necessary to get the project off the ground.

The initial strategy of the project team was to convene an ongoing group of diverse interests who would attend a series of "Roundtable" meetings about economic diversification in tobacco-growing communities. The Roundtables were expected to react to and critique analyses of the current and developing changes in tobacco communities. As experts on their own situations, members of the Roundtables could provide community-based strategies grounded in the reality of tobacco communities. The IEN facilitators spent many hours calling dozens of potential participants and explaining the goals and process of these Roundtable meetings. The first meeting, held in November, 1994, featured over 40 individuals discussing the prospects for tobacco, the need for and interest in agricultural diversification, and economic development in general.

Building upon the telephone discussions, personal contacts, and the accomplishments of the first meeting, a second meeting was convened in March, 1995 with the following goals:

• Assess the support for economic diversification in tobacco-growing communities;

• Identify grower and community needs for agricultural diversification and economic development;

• Identify and increase individual and institutional resources;

• Develop a network for community leadership on economic diversification in tobacco-growing communities.

In the meantime, the project team realized the importance of bringing into project leadership the state agricultural university. An agricultural economist from Virginia Tech who had been advocating preparation for change in tobacco-growing areas was willing to participate, and a small amount of funding was secured to assist in his participation.

The second Roundtable meeting featured presentations by the two project team economists. Their key findings included a continuing decline in the role of tobacco in the state economy, the potential for even greater decline through a combination of market pressures, taxes, and health concerns, and the difficulty and expense involved in facilitating the inevitable change so that tobacco-growing communities were not devastated.

The third Roundtable meeting, in April 1995, featured presentations from a sustainable agriculture advocate and former tobacco grower in Kentucky and yet another economist, an individual who had been involved in helping shape tobacco production and marketing policy for decades. This was the most contentious and productive of all the meetings, as tobacco interests revealed the tensions within their own community around the alliance between manufacturers and growers. Many tobacco growers believe that the manufacturers donšt care about them, that growers are more valuable to manufacturers as voters than as producers, and that manufacturers give more support to growers overseas than at home. Participants agreed to the creation of smaller working groups to tackle four areas of interest: 1) continued marketing and production support for tobacco; 2) access to information about profitable supplemental on-farm enterprises; 3) financing for small business development; and 4) education for employment in specific work sectors.

A fourth Roundtable meeting, later in April, was held in the burley-growing area of Virginia. Burley growers in Virginia farm much smaller average amounts of tobacco than growers of flue-cured tobacco, and this meeting was intended to ascertain the concerns and interests of burley-growing communities and to suggest the need for and potential of supplemental enterprises. Presentations by a North Carolina state agricultural development official and Kentucky Community Farm Alliance leaders focused on agricultural diversification. Participants from the burley-growing areas also endorsed the goals of the proposed four working groups.

In June, 1995, the project leaders visited the Flue-Cured Tobacco Stabilization Board, the flue-cured tobacco co-operative, in Raleigh, North Carolina, to explore potential interest in uses of the co-op for non-tobacco production. The goal of this meeting with the Board executive director and Virginia's Board member was to plant the seeds for future collaboration and develop personal relationships with Board leadership, and as expected no agreement was pursued. In June, project leaders also presented their findings and working group plans to the legislative study committee concerned with tobacco alternatives.

Led by the Virginia Tech economist, the four working groups developed their recommendations during the summer and fall. On December 13, 1995, in Roanoke, project leaders made a formal presentation of these recommendations to the Joint Legislative Study Committee on Alternative Strategies for Tobacco Farmers. This presentation was made in conjunction with a dinner and town meeting the evening before.

The Town Meeting and Legislative Recommendations

Despite the weather threatening snow and ice, almost sixty people attended the town meeting, including three members of the Legislative Subcommittee and media representatives from as far away as Atlanta. The Roanoke public radio station broadcast the meeting in January 1996.

The facilitators introduced the meeting by providing background to the Virginia Tobacco Communities Project, the goals of the working groups, and the meeting agenda. Virginia Tech's economist presented a summary of seven recommendations proposed by the study groups. In his presentation he emphasized that what is at stake is not a crop, but people. To make his point he posed the following tobacco family scenarios:

• Family 1: Jane and Jack Smith. Full-time farming, 60 years old (just five years older than the average age of farm operators in the top 12 tobacco producing counties in Virginia, where four out of ten farm operators are over 60 years of age), two grown children working in Richmond and Lynchburg. They have 22 acres in tobacco, leasing eight of those and get half of their farm income from tobacco (in the top 12 tobacco-growing counties in Virginia, tobacco accounts for about half of the dollar value of all farm products sold). They would like to sell their farm and retire in five years.

  Needs: To continue to get value out of tobacco production; to get value out of existing quota owned; to get value out of farm when sold or developed.

• Family 2: George and Martha Taylor. 42 years old. George is employed by a building supplies firm, Martha works at a tobacco processing plant. They have very little money set aside for retirement. Martha dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, her work is seasonal, and she is concerned that there may be layoffs in the next few years. George has a high school diploma, does household repair work in his spare time, and would like one day to begin his own construction and remodeling business.

  Needs: Adult education to get GED; training for skills such as plumbing, construction, or electrical work; small business financing.

• Family 3: Sally and Tom Smith. 35 years old. Sally is a full-time homemaker. The Smiths have three children aged 10, 8, and 3. Tom works in retail sales at Southern States. They both help Tom's parents work their farm, which has five acres of tobacco plus a cattle operation. The Smiths would like their children to grow up on the farm. Ideally, they would like to be able to purchase the farm from his parents and farm full-time. They wonder whether they can get a loan to make the purchase, how they will maintain the productivity and profitability of the farm, and whether and how they can purchase new equipment.

  Needs: Financing for purchase and capital improvements; advice and expertise for on-farm enterprises; possible short-term and/or part-time employment for one or both to supplement their farm income, at least initially.

• Family 4: Jake and Sandra Thomas. 21 years old. Jake and Sandra are seniors at Virginia Tech, the Virginia land grant university. They were married last summer. When they left their hometown of Dungannon, they were not sure they ever wanted to return. They knew they didn't want to spend any more summers working their families small tobacco plots and the coal companies weren't hiring. Both have traveled around the East Coast for the last three years and they have gained a better appreciation for the beauty of their heritage and the benefits of close-knit family and community. They would like to return somewhere in Southwest Virginia to begin their own family.

  Needs: Economic opportunity; sense of possibility, knowledge of existing economic development efforts; high skill or high tech employment opportunities.

• improvements in production and marketing of tobacco;
• access to information about profitable supplemental on-farm enterprises;
• financing for small business development;
• education for employment in specific work sectors.

The economist noted that Virginia farmers are proud people, with a strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit. These assets can serve as catalysts for new farming and other money-generating activities. There are three essential ingredients for product success: market power; an open mind in approaching economic adjustments; and community support, including financial assistance. In order for tobacco growers to compete in an environment of changing market conditions, they need information and programs to expedite new business ventures.

The seven recommendations were offered as specific requests to the Legislative Subcommittee. These included requests to restore extension and research funding, to examine the potential of an agricultural Capital Access Program, to endorse a conference on supplemental enterprises and alternative uses of tobacco, to endorse a survey of growers' needs and interests, and to support cooperative efforts for education and economic development in rural communities.

The recommendations were largely endorsed by participants at the Town Meeting. Many tobacco growers continued to push for improvements in production and marketing of tobacco, given the importance of the crop to both the local and state economies. The group acknowledged the region's dependence on tobacco and its importance to the well-being of its people and the overall economic security of their communities. However, some participants pointed out that if there are fewer producers in the future due to increased mechanization and economies of scale, there may not be any alternative except to find profitable supplemental crops and business ventures. Growers are not adverse to change if it will bring them a profit. Agencies involved in economic development need to cooperate to find quality jobs for the younger generation who do not have the capital to buy land and equipment and replace retiring farmers.

Lessons Learned

There are a number of procedural and substantive lessons learned from this ongoing experience. Key substantive lessons include:

• The profitability of tobacco for growers, a product of limited production (quotas) and artificially high prices (price support), makes for considerable dependence on the crop in tobacco-growing communities. This dependence, fortified by cultural, historical and symbolic representations, is used effectively by tobacco companies to garner sympathy and support for the industry. Health advocates - the "anti-s" - are used by the industry as scapegoats for uncertainty and periodic decline in production and/or prices, and, indeed, flat or declining cigarette use and high cigarette taxes are undoubtedly to considerable degree a result of such advocacy. In fact, however, competition from around the world is a substantial and probably primary factor for current pressures to lower prices and profits. Many growers recognize that factor and the role that the big tobacco companies play in supporting growers in other countries, including provision in some cases of seed, fertilizer, technical assistance, and so forth.

• Despite considerable antagonism among the growers towards the manufacturers for their support of overseas production and other reasons, their alliance is not likely to be shaken any time soon. This is due to the 1994 buyout agreement, in which most of the major manufacturers agreed to purchase considerable surplus tobacco stock from previous years. This buyout, which followed a complicated format for discounts of these purchases, meant that growers who had been facing as much as a 40% quota cut for the following year, instead were able to increase production. However, this agreement was contingent upon a number of factors favorable to the manufacturers, including the absence of FDA regulation and increased cigarette taxes, a provision which ensures grower opposition to any such regulation or taxes.

• The importance of that shift following the buyout, from an expected 40% cut to an increase in production, cannot be overemphasized. The amount of interest among growers in pursuing agricultural diversification and economic development declined considerably.

• The project survey demonstrates consistent and strong support for using a cigarette tax increase to help farmers and farming communities make a transition away from dependence upon tobacco: 74% in tobacco manufacturing areas, 72% in tobacco producing areas, and 76% in Virginia as a whole. Municipalities in Virginia outside of tobacco-growing regions make millions of dollars every year from local tobacco product taxes. Virginia's $02.5 cigarette tax is the lowest in the nation. In private, project members heard a number of people involved in tobacco production say that such a tax would be a good idea. Despite this demonstrated interest in tobacco taxes, strong resistance still exists publicly among producers. In addition to the buyout provisions, farmers are concerned that 1) it would be impossible to keep other interests from demanding a portion of the money, or 2) a five cent increase, which would have minimal impact on sales, might be followed by even greater tax increases and eventual rise in the cost of tobacco products, thus diminishing the demand for their crop.

• The current tobacco program limits production through quotas and keeps prices high through the price-support system. An end to that program would likely shift tobacco production further south, increase production, and lower prices. The potential harm to the communities currently dependent upon tobacco production, and the potential impact of increased production and lower prices on the price of tobacco products, raises an interesting question about whether anti-tobacco interests should support continuation of the current program of quotas and price supports.

• The main strength of the tobacco program that has allowed growers a good return on their investment is the cooperative arrangement of limited production and price supports. There may be other ways of using existing producer cooperative infrastructure to support non-tobacco economic ventures. This idea was explored with leading tobacco grower interests, but little headway was made. Nonetheless, a pilot project using the burley growers cooperative in Kentucky to market organic produce bears further watching. Involvement of large buyers, such as colleges or prisons, may be the key to success in the development of supplements.

• This project received very little attention by the manufacturers and manufacturing unions. Furthermore, despite the fact that migrant workers account for the majority of the labor of tobacco production, there was little involvement or discussion of their interests and needs. A substantial extra effort would be required to include these other interests.

• The formation of relationships with tobacco growers and other non-traditional allies is an important, if not essential element of health promotion. In our case, one prominent tobacco grower acted as a liaison between other growers and ourselves and helped to legitimize the project's efforts within the tobacco-growing community. He told other farmers that "we'll keep an eye on them; you farmers come out and participate." This relationship can result in awkward situations and dilemmas for health advocates, as occurred when many tobacco-growing interests repeatedly emphasized that their primary concern is in maintaining the current tobacco program. Project leadership believed that an important part of the project was to understand and report the needs and concerns of tobacco growers, and gained some credibility by not attempting to block reporting of that concern.

• There is a need for courageous leadership from the health advocates to move from a single-minded focus aimed against anything related to tobacco. This will require that anti-smoking advocates gain an understanding of tobacco production, the government tobacco program and quota system. It will also require major shifts in attitude away from the more antagonistic approach of identifying one's enemies and towards identifying new players with whom to form alliances.

• Partnerships among state agencies, universities, and private entities provided resources in many areas. This project was able to take the leading role in Virginia in facilitating coordination of these different efforts.

• The presence of the media may affect participants' level of comfort in suggesting supplemental enterprises.

• A vocal health advocate's early attack on the production of tobacco, the first statement made during the town meeting, may have put the farmers in a position of defending their positions rather than generating alternative strategies. Although the health dimension is a concern, the agenda that attracted the farming community to the town meeting was that they would discuss mechanisms that might benefit their situation. The health advocate could have been approached ahead of time and asked to consider the likely consequences of his argument in this forum.

• The formation of relationships with tobacco growers and other non-traditional allies will not be without their inevitable conflicts of interest; thus, the employment of consensus-building processes is an essential tool in helping new partners communicate more effectively and discover areas of common ground.

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