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                                                 CONTACT: Marguerite Beck

            Coalition Holds Town Meeting on Tobacco Issues in Virginia

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA., Dec. 6 -- Tobacco farmers, health care 
professionals, university researchers, state legislators and others will 
gather in Roanoke on Tuesday, Dec. 12 to discuss the future needs of 
Virginia's tobacco-growing communities. The town meeting, which is sponsored 
by the Tobacco Communities Project, will begin at 7 p.m. at the Hotel Roanoke. 
	Representatives from the Tobacco Communities Project will present 
information on improved tobacco productivity and marketing, supplemental
crops and livestock enterprises, financing for small businesses and education 
for economic development. Members of the audience will be encouraged to 
comment on these and other tobacco-related issues.
	Delegate Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville, and other members 
of the Virginia legislature's Joint Subcommittee Studying Alternative 
Strategies for Assisting Tobacco Farmers will attend the meeting  in 
preparation for their report to the 1996 General Assembly.
	The Tobacco Communities Project, funded by a grant from the Robert 
Wood Johnson Foundation to the University of Virginia School of Medicine, is 
a coalition of tobacco farmers, agricultural organizations and state agencies, 
community colleges and state research universities. The coalition is charged 
with examining agricultural diversification and economic development options 
in tobacco-producing regions of Virginia.  
	For more information on the Tobacco Communities Project, contact 
Rich Collins or Frank Dukes at 804-924-1970.
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                                              December 5, 1995