Tobacco buyout meeting April 5


Anyone with lingering questions about the tobacco quota buyout can look for answers at an informational meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 5.

The Farm Service Agency will hold the meeting on the Tobacco Transition Payment Program at 7 p.m. at the Aycock Recreation Complex.

“This meeting is for tobacco quota producers who are owners, operators, landlords, tenants or sharecroppers who shared in the risk of producing tobacco any time between 2002 and 2004,” reads an announcement from the Farm Service Agency. “It is also for quota holders who owned a farm with a 2004 basic marketing quota as of October 22, 2004.”

The topics of the meeting will include eligibility for the buyout and how quota holders and growers can get their payments.

June 17 is the deadline to sign up for the first year of payments, which will be made by the end of September. Payments in subsequent years will go out in January. Those who are eligible but miss this year’s deadline may sign up next year.

The buyout will pay quota holders $7 per pound and producers $3 per pound, generally based on 2002 quotas. The payments will be stretched over 10 years.