LEAF NEWS
Canada
Ontario tobacco growers delivered a higher-than-expected harvest of the 2014 crop despite unseasonably cool temperatures during the growing season. With the last deliveries posted by contracting buyers, the Ontario Flue-cured Tobacco Growers’ Marketing Board reported that 241 licensed growers in Brant, Norfolk, Oxford, Elgin, and Middlesex counties delivered slightly more than 61 million lbs (m.lbs) of leaf grown last summer on 21,670 acres, which is an increase of about 4.3 m.lbs from 56.3 m.lbs in 2013, and it came from fewer farmers growing on a smaller acreage.
The 2013 crop was grown by 243 growers on 23,269 acres. It means that despite those constraints and adverse weather conditions, growers managed to reap about 4.7 m.lbs of extra volume.
“This is good news for the growers,” said Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett, who is also the Progressive Conservative critic for agriculture, food and rural affairs. “We know there is a continued future for tobacco in Norfolk, Brant, Oxford, and Elgin counties.”
In 2013, 241 growers delivered a harvest nearly 10% short of that year’s projected volume of 62 m.lbs. The shortfall was blamed mostly on the weather. Faced with that, growers delivered a lower crop, albeit of good quality.
The 2014 growing season presented challenges. From seeding their greenhouses to transplanting to the fields, growers were delayed at the onset by unseasonably cool temperatures, board chairman Fred Neukamm said at the time.