You can see a trailer of flue-cured tobacco, at right, being taken into the Growers Big 4 warehouse in Hemingway, S.C., a small town in northeastern Williamsburg County near Florence and Marion counties.
The production and sale of tobacco in the South has changed dramatically over the last 30 years in the South. Tobacco auctions, quotas and government price supports dominated prior to 2004 when reforms eliminated government intervention into the market and allowed growers to produce as much as they wanted [Learn more]. These days, auctions are rare — with only one in South Carolina according to this story — and growers enter into direct contracts with buyers.
Williamsburg County, located in the middle of the Southern Crescent, is about 75 miles north of Charleston, S.C. Just under 34,000 people live in the county, which is about the number who lived there in 1900, according to Census figures. Population peaked in 1950 at 43,807, but has dropped slowly since then.
About two-thirds of county residents are black, with almost all of those remaining being white. Only 2 percent of those in the county are of Hispanic descent. Some 32.8 percent of residents live in poverty, according to the Census. Of the county’s 1,921 firms, 36.5 percent are black-owned — a percentage that is three times South Carolina’s average.
- Williamsburg County on Wikipedia.
- More about Hemingway from Wikipedia.
- QuickFacts from the U.S. Census.
Copyrighted photo taken on July 26, 2013 by Better South President Andy Brack All rights reserved.