COAL COUNTRY: 16.tobacco_farmer.jpg

Hired hand in a tobacco field, Jackson, KY, 1978. Jackson is nestled in the heart of the Cumberland Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains. Kentucky produces more tobacco than any other state except North Carolina. For centuries, tobacco barns dotted the central Kentucky landscape, but as health risks from smoking became clear, sales of the state’s longtime top crop plummeted. Now farmers are turning to hemp as a less labor-intensive, more profitable alternative with a growing market for the extracted CBD oil. Jon Chase photo
16.tobacco_farmer.jpg

Hired hand in a tobacco field, Jackson, KY, 1978. Jackson is nestled in the heart of the Cumberland Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains. Kentucky produces more tobacco than any other state except North Carolina. For centuries, tobacco barns dotted the central Kentucky landscape, but as health risks from smoking became clear, sales of the state’s longtime top crop plummeted. Now farmers are turning to hemp as a less labor-intensive, more profitable alternative with a growing market for the extracted CBD oil. Jon Chase photo