A32-Lancast«r Farming, Saturday, Dacambar 13,1986
Tobacco
(Continued from Page Al)
also being sold by Paradise
Tobacco Sales in Paradise and
Garden Spot Tobacco Auction in
Blue Ball.
Paradise opened the auction
season on Monday with 280,000
pounds of tobacco on the floor. “It
was basically a no-sale day,” said
the company’s spokesman Eric
Probst. Farmers rejected bids
ranging from 10 cents to 90 cents a
pound offered by seven southern
buyers.
About 11 percent of the tobacco
offered at Garden Spot on Tuesday
was sold, according to general
manager Bill Mowbray. Prices
ranged from 10 cents to a dollar on
the 22,000 pounds sold, with the
better grades averaging 75 to 80
cents, Mowbray said.
On Tuesday afternoon, Penn
sylvania Tobacco Auction halted
its sale in Quarryville when prices
failed to meet buyers’ ex
pectations. A second PTA sale
scheduled for Wednesday was also
cancelled.
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Buyers.
Auctions
Buyers and sellers had a second
chance to come to terms at
Paradise on Thursday. This time
16,000 pounds of the 280,000 pounds
of 609 offered was sold. Prices hit
the 85-to-90-cent range for top
grades, with middle grades
averaging 45 to 50 cents, said
Probst. Thursday’s sale was an
improvement on Monday’s opener,
Probst said.
Despite the slow start, auction
management expects to see an
upturn in the market. Garden
Spot’s Bill Mowbray said that this
year’s early start didn’t help
matters. “We started a week
earlier than last year,” he pointed
out. “Three or four years ago
hardly any tobacco moved before
the first of the year.”
Mowbray emphasized that the
soft market has nothing to do with
acceptance of the new auction
system. “The buyers aren’t out in
the field either,” he said. “The
orders probably just aren’t in yet.”
One reason for the lack of buyer
enthusiasm, Mobray speculated,
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was the 71 million pounds of hurley
tobacco released by the federal
government to buyers this sum
mer. Part of 1983’s production, the
tobacco was sold “in the strip,” or
already processed, at bargain
basement prices. Mobray said that
the hurley could serve as a sub
stitute for the 609 tobacco grown in
Pennsylvania.
Mowbray said that this year’s
lower quality tobacco is also
contributing to lower prices. “We
didn’t have as good a growing or
curing season this year,” he said.
“Last year conditions were right.”
Joe Irvin, a buyer from Ideal
Leaf in Virginia, concurs. “The
quality of the tobacco isn’t what it
was last year,” he said at Paradise
on Thursday. Irvin, who comes to
Pennsylvania every year to buy
609, also complained that much of
the tobacco had been baled at too
high a moisture content.
Ken Brubaker, of Keystone
Tobacco Marketing Group, also
believes that moisture content hurt
farmers this week. Keystone’s
function is to promote Penn
sylvania tobacco to southern
buyers, but Brubaker was clearly
unhappy with what Pennsylvania
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brought to those buyers this week.
“Farmers need to take steps to
keep as much of the dampness out
of the tobacco as possible,”
Brubaker said. He explained that
the moist tobacco generates heat
when compressed into bales and
eventually rots.
Bill Mowbray predicted that the
quality of the tobacco would im
prove as the season progresses.
Tobacco on the floor right now was
the last to go into the barn. “It was
planted last and harvested last and
it didn’t have the warm curing
season,” he said. “There’s
probably better tobacco still out on
the farms.”
Joe Irvin, who said that he
hadn’t bought any auction tobacco
as of Thursday morning, vowed to
go to the farms to buy tobacco if
farmers were interested in selling.
“I’ll buy tobacco direct just like I
always have, if the farmer calls
me up,” he said.
But not all tobacco growers were
willing to revert to the traditional
marketing system. Carl Schnupp
of Lititz grows IS acres annually
and said he’ll stay with the auc-
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tions. Schnupp, whose better
grades brought him $1.05 to $1.30
per pound over the block last year,
was surprised that the market took
a steep drop this year.
“I could have sold it last year on
the farm, but I didn’t,” Schnupp
said. If approached by buyers to
sell his tobacco on a private treaty
basis, Schnupp said, “I’d tell them
I prefer the auction.”
As for the the rest of this year’s
auction season, Schnupp was
optimistic. “I look for it to get
better,” he predicted.
“I don’t see a cause for real
concern,” said Bill Mowbray.
“Just the fact that farmers are
supporting the auction is a good
sign. You don’t go from zero to 100
miles an hour in one day.”
After coaxing buyers to up their
bids at Paradise on Thursday,
auctioneer Mitch Ashby believed
that prices would improve. “It’s
going to take some time,” he said.
“The farmers need the auctions.
It’s the fairest way to sell your
product.”
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