This summer has been particularly hard on some farmers here in the east.
Jones county farmer Joe Stilley said, "In my operation, tobacco is everything."
Just like it has been for five generations in the Stilley family but Joe says this season has been hard.
"With fuel prices and high fertilizer prices and weather conditions and the drought, it's been kind of a tough year," said Stilley.
He says they are just starting to harvest their first tobacco crop and admits, "I think the tobacco crop is going to be a little short this year with the drought." The cost of fuel just to dry it will be around $125,000
He will take the final product and try to sell to a company this week but what he thinks is a fair price they might not and it all adds to the uncertainty. He can either take what they offer or take his crop home.
On top of an increase in doing business, Stilley says they have had a big problem with a bug called the Hornworm. "They have been worse this year than they have been. We spray once a week."
At $10 per acre to spray 230 acres, that's $2,300. So to off set the increase in cost, Stilley is cutting back where he can.
He said, "We got to figure out where we can cut cost and the best place to cut our cost be it in labor, fuel, whatever it may be."
This is the first year Stilley is using a machine that separates and sorts the tobacco leaves that come off trucks from the fields
"It could cut my labor cost up to 50 percent," said Stilley.
And that’s why he's trying to figure out new ways to save money so he can stay in business.
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