One of our mandates is to help these families increase their income. Tennessee farmers, of course, figured that out long ago. Despite being a good source of income, tobacco farming is very hard work. From planting and harvesting to preparing leaf for market, the crop requires intensive hands-on labor and management. Many of the activities are strenuous and some can be dangerous.
Little relief is available through mechanization.
According to Mundy, the farm family has been the traditional source of labor. As more farmers and their family members work at off-farm jobs, and as the farming population ages, the availability of family and domestic labor has been diminishing. The average 300 hours of labor per acre of tobacco can seem daunting to an aging producer, and hiring help to bring in a crop is not as easy as it sounds. So a growing portion of the labor force is migrant workers, who bring their own set of problems, not the least of which can be housing requirements. Migrants are often not feasible for the smaller producer to hire, and larger producers have trouble sustaining their services throughout a season.