There had to be a better way for farmers to package
tobacco.

"A nationwide tobacco advisory committee told growers
and warehousemen they need
to find a better marketing package," said J. Michael Moore,
a tobacco agronomist with
the University of Georgia Extension Service.

Moore and others figure the answer is a hydraulic baler that
squeezes cured tobacco
leaves into 800- to 900-pound bales about 44 inches square.

Since the 1960s tobacco has been sold in 250-pound, burlap-
bound packages called
sheets. But the sheets are hard to move around. The burlap tears
easily during moving and
allows leaves to fall out.

With the baler, though, "we’ve been able to put about
four sheets’ worth of
tobacco into one bale," Moore said.

That compression is helpful, since warehouse space isn’t what
it used to be.
"These bales could allow warehousemen to keep three to four
times more tobacco in the
same amount of floor space while keeping leaf quality
high," Moore said.

The real benefit, though, could be lower labor costs. Bales
require less labor than
sheets to pack and move around.

Moore said Georgia-grown tobacco has more sugar and is
exposed to higher humidity than
that grown in the Carolinas and Virginia. Although the high
sugar content appeals to
buyers, it also makes the tobacco absorb moisture faster.

For that reason, many people felt Georgia-grown tobacco
wouldn’t stay at top quality in
bales. But studies this year show it can.

"If the tobacco is properly cured and goes into the bale
at less than 16 percent
moisture," Moore said, "the quality stays
high."

Tobacco in bales isn’t as easy to inspect as in sheets,
though. Graders and buyers can
easily look through loosely-packed sheets to see the leaves.
They look for leaf color,
size, texture and stalk position to tell the leaf grade and
offer a price.

But the bales have five sides they can see. And during tests
this summer, Moore said,
they could see enough of each bale to decide on an appropriate
grade for the tobacco.

Growers will have to stake their reputation on each bale’s
consistency. "They’ll
have to be able to say the bale is the same on the inside as it
is on the outside,"
Moore said. "And the buyers will have to trust
them."

Moore expects studies to continue for two to three more
years. Then the industry will
decide if baling is a good option for tobacco.

"All indications we’re getting point to baling as an
acceptable packaging approach,"
Moore said.

"The whole idea of this study is to make sure Georgia
growers aren’t left behind," he
said. "They will have seen the technology in operation,
hopefully on their own farm.
And when the time comes, they can decide for themselves whether
it’s right for the
industry."