Before heading off on a week-long furlough, the South Carolina Senate gave key approval last week to a measure to raise the state’s cigarette tax by 50 cents. The measure requires a final vote in the Senate and approval by the House. While the bulk of the revenue raise from the tax hike would go to Medicaid programs, a portion would be earmarked for agricultural marketing. State Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers says the funds will be used in part to help some farmers with their decisions to plant crops other than tobacco.

“The monies that are earmarked to come into the promotion of agriculture are designed to help farmers look at alternative crops wherein our tobacco acreage is down now maybe around 20,000 acres when it used to be four times that amount. There is no direct help for any one individual farmer from those funds, it’s simply to regain our footing on the marketing program that we began three years ago.”

Weathers says because of state budget cuts, the funds for the Department of Agriculture’s marketing plan called “Certified South Carolina” have been literally cut to zero. [Read more...]