Help Wanted for Tobacco Harvest

Burley tobacco hangs curing in a Smith County barn. Photo credit David Glover/UT Extension Service

Tennessee tobacco farmers say they can’t find enough help for this year’s harvest. The labor shortage is a result of immigrant workers not showing up in their usual numbers.

Tobacco farms are much bigger than they used to be, but nearly everything is still done by hand – chopping, spiking, and stripping. Hispanic field workers have become vital to the harvest, says Smith County extension agent David Glover.

“A lot of those who’ve been doing it for years, they’re pretty highly skilled at it. They could get a lot more done than somebody who is inexperienced or didn’t want to work that hard, that long.”

It can be backbreaking work that few are willing to do – Glover says – even those who are part of the 8.5 percent unemployed in the state.

As for an explanation about where the immigrant laborers have gone, Glover says farmers hear they’re looking for steadier, year-round employment.