Bumper tobacco crop allows Lancaster County growers to cash in

Mennonite farmer putting tobacco into his barn, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1941
(Marion Post Wolcott/FSA/LOC)

(lancasteronline) ... Pennsylvania's tobacco growers produced 22.98 million pounds of tobacco in 2012, according to data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, or NASS.
That's more than double what was produced as recently as 2005, when production hovered around 11 million pounds.
Dennis Hess, a buyer for Tri-Leaf Tobacco Co. in New Holland, which contracts with 600 growers in the state, said hot, dry conditions this past summer, coupled with rains coming at the right time, will pay off for farmers. Continued