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Washington, DC -- Congressman David Davis today announced that the United States Department of Agriculture will issue its Tobacco Transition Payment Program annual allotment of $46,623,085.50 to 65,535 farmers in the counties of the First District.
“I am pleased to see that Tennessee’s hard working farmers are being given their annual tobacco transition payment. These funds are intended to ease tobacco farmers’ transition into the free market due to the termination of the federal tobacco marketing program that had been in place since the Great Depression.
“Hardworking farmers throughout the First District of Tennessee and the United States often rely on this payment to ease their transition into the free market and I am pleased to see that Tennessean farmers have been paid their annual allotment.”
Note: USDA will issue this year’s installment in the Tobacco Transition Payment Program with more than $950 million in payments to former quota holders and producers today. The transition payments are funded by assessments on tobacco product importers and manufacturers.
Approximately $3.8 billion in payments will have been paid to former tobacco quota holders and producers when this fourth round of payments ends. These funds help tobacco farmers’ transition to the free market, due to the termination of the federal tobacco marketing program.
The Tobacco Transition Payment Program marked the end of the federal tobacco marketing quota and price support loan programs, which had been in place since the Great Depression. The Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act, signed into law by President Bush in October 2004, established the payment schedule.
Payments began in 2005 and will end in 2014, to provide 10 equal annual payments to former quota holders and producers.
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