Source: WFDD, 11/8/19


Smoking has been in decline for decades, but tobacco remains a vital crop to much of the Southeast. North Carolina is the nation’s largest grower and exporter of tobacco. So when tobacco was included in retaliatory tariffs from China, it hit the state – and its farmers – particularly hard. On Sue and Brent Leggett’s Nash County farm, a series of small barns are arranged neatly like a planned community of tiny houses clad in shiny metal. Inside each one, tobacco is being cured until it’s time to be loaded onto a tractor-trailer like this one loaded to the roof for an October delivery.

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