Mail Surveys

2006 Burley Producer Survey
The 2006 Burley Tobacco Survey, developed in Spring 2006, is a mail-based producer survey covering the states of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia.  Developed by the University of Tennessee Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, the questionnaire was mailed to 6,000 producers within the three-state region.  The 32 questions survey was divided into four sections: tobacco production, future production, farming operation, and demographic information.  The survey primarily covers burley production between 2004 and 2006.

2008 Tobacco Survey - Current and Former Growers
The 2008 Tobacco Survey was mailed in February 2008 to current and former tobacco growers in fourteen different states with experience growing various types of tobacco.
Since the tobacco program was eliminated, significant shifts have occurred throughout traditional tobacco producing regions.  Many counties have significantly decreased or increased tobacco production and several are producing types of tobacco that were not produced in the pre-buyout era.  Likewise, tobacco production has expanded into new regions. 
The 2008 Current and Former Growers survey captures information about changes that have occurred in production and collects growers’ views on important tobacco production and marketing issues.  Additionally, information is collected from former growers about their farming operation and production decisions.  The major sections of the survey cover tobacco production and marketing issues, general farm structure and demographic information.
2008 Mail Survey Producer Responses

2008 Costs and Returns Survey
The 2008 Costs and Returns Survey was mailed in April 2008.  The purpose of the survey is to collect information about the costs and returns of producing tobacco.  This study will allow comparisons of cost structure by types grown, farm size and geographic location.  Additionally, this study will provide new information about how tobacco growers view their cost structure and the inputs used by growers.
The availability of costs and returns data from tobacco growers is very limited.  The most recent cost and returns survey of tobacco growers by USDA was conducted in 1995 through the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) of flue-cured growers and the 1995 Farm Costs and Returns Survey (FCRS) of burley growers.  The ARMS survey collected data from 316 flue-cured tobacco growers from five different states, while the FCRS survey included 235 burley growers from KY and TN.  Until 2004, the costs and returns estimates were updated annually based primarily on inflationary adjustments.
The study includes flue-cured, burley, dark-air and dark-fired tobacco growers.  Three separate surveys were used for flue-cured, burley and dark tobacco.