With current movements and urbanization around the world, many farmers are facing issues where they have no one to take over their farms which means that farmers get old and cannot work the land anymore, forcing them to sell. During this trip we got the opportunity to speak with Usmani, a tobacco farmer who expressed similar problems as his son has moved out of the countryside to get an education. Although he is happy for his son, this means that he doesn’t have anyone to take over the farm which will be a problem down the line, a problem that many farmers face. Usmani got to share with us the process of farming tobacco which starts from the sewing of tiny brown seeds which grow into shrubs of about 20 centimeters tall in about two to three months. These plants are then harvested for its leaves and cured (dried) in a curing house. The curing process is done by hanging the leaves upside down and allowing air to circulate and dry them, bringing out the taste and quality. This is a delicate period which is closely monitored by the farmer, taking up to a month or more. When the leaves are ready, the tobacco farmer separates them by stalk position and quality before packing them into bales for delivery to the place of sale, be it directly to consumers or to industries for further processing. Tobacco leaves may be preserved for a long time. The taste is enhanced by the aging process. Some farmers as in the case of Usmani, use the tobacco leaves to produce secondary products like cigars in-house, which brings in the extra step of rolling carefully selected dry leaves into smokable form as a final product. One of the greatest risks tobacco farmers face is pests, especially hornworms which eat and destroy the leaves. This makes them unable to so as cigars or to sell as high-quality products for industrial use, leading to high amounts of waste and lost revenue.

Matulès