I had the privilege of accompanying Don at a tobacco auction in Rural Hall, North Carolina, today. The Old Belt Farmers Co-op tobacco auction is one of the few remaining in the country, and the northernmost flue-cured tobacco auction that I know of in the US. [Danville, Virginia exists only because of the massive tobacco auction houses that built the town. Now, they no longer exist there.] This one auction on this one day offered over 1.2 million pounds of flue-cured leaf, all in bales. Tobacco is brought here from many hundreds of miles away.
The tiny number of buyers are representatives of companies large and small. Each buyer knows what his clients are looking for today, and how much they are willing to pay. The sellers know the minimum price that they must get for each of their bales, which differ in quality, and will fetch different prices.
Don Carey inspects the leaf in each bale carefully.
This warehouse is about the same area as a football field, all under one roof.
Since none of the bales use a pallet, the warehouse has three custom-designed bale lifts, fitted to forklifts.
Once the auction begins, the auctioneer and buyers start walking down the long rows of single-high bales, bidding along the way, and seldom stopping. They just move along continuously, until each bale has been individually auctioned. Today's auction lasted a little over two hours. That's over 10,000 pounds auctioned per minute.
The winning bid is noted on a tag that is left on top of each bale. The seller has the option of accepting the bid, or simply turning the tag face-down, indicating that he will not sell at that price--and that bale then goes unsold.
Before the start of the auction, I asked this warehouse employee what they did with the floor sweepings. They take home the nice pieces, and throw the rest in the trash.
Don and Rick Smith spent nearly an hour identifying the specific bales Don would bid on.
Don had a specific, high-grade of flue-cured leaf that he was looking for today, and managed to purchase 5 bales, all from the same grower. It was by far the prettiest leaf offered, and understandably was sold at the highest price of all the 1.2 million pounds auctioned today.
These side-by-side bales contrast the pride of older growers with that of younger growers today.
This bale appeared to be what one might expect from raking the dirt, after the leaf has been harvested. There were huge stems of identifiable weeds, lots of tiny leaf fragments, and all sorts of other crud.
One of the 5 bales Don purchased. He paid the most, for the best leaf there.
Bob
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