Ford and Baesler acknowledged that many growers do have doubts about how long the price-support system can continue. But Baesler, the only active tobacco farmer in Congress, said growers are skeptical by nature. They're the most pessimistic group in the world. But the high percentage of people who said they neither support nor oppose a buyout shows many farmers may not yet understand how the complex buyout proposals would affect them. Generally, there was more support for the buyout among middle-age farmers, people employed off the farm, those with higher incomes and those owning larger quotas.
Different groups have different reasons for supporting a buyout.
Larger quota owners stand to receive larger payments, for instance. For them a buyout would be a windfall that would end the need to find someone every year to lease or rent their tobacco. But he used to grow his 2,000-pound quota himself when his two sons were at home and his wife was alive. Now Patrick leases his quota to someone else to grow. It's getting harder to find takers, and the lease price he gets has dropped by half in recent years, to 25 cents a pound.