Tobacco production, part 1

The Ashland Board of City Commissioners is considering enacting a ban on indoor smoking similar to the one in Cabell County. That got me wondering about tobacco farming in this region.

Here are some numbers I came up with comparing production in 1995 with 2005. I hope to post more numbers later, but these are the early results of what I found:

In 1995, Cabell County farmers planted 360 acres of burley tobacco and harvested 470,000 pounds. Last year, they planted 88 acres and harvested 161,000 pounds.

In Mason County, W.Va., acreage in that same period dropped from 470 to 112, and production from 690,000 pounds to 191,000 pounds.

Gallia County, Ohio, produces more tobacco than Cabell and Mason counties combined, but production is down sharply there, too. That county’s production has fallen from 1.68 million pounds on 950 acres in 1995 to 588,000 pounds on 300 acres last year.