For Release: Dec. 18, 2006
Tobacco Money Feeds My Family is a documentary about the lives of tobacco farmers, their families and communities. The program, which also explores tobacco culture and the decline of this once-thriving industry, airs Tuesday, Jan. 9 at 9/8 p.m. CT on KET1.
While tobacco is now often referred to as a killer crop, for some it is still their livelihood. Tobacco Money Feeds My Family documents how the lives of three North Carolina tobacco farmers change during one growing season and its aftermath.
One of the farmers featured in the film is Melvin Croom, a white tenant farmer who works 20 acres of tobacco in Lenoir County and refers to tobacco farming as being "in my blood." Also, Willie Marvin Allen, a 73-year-old African American sharecropper, farms a small plot of land near Durham. The third farmer, Ernie Averett, is a white, seventh-generation farmer who employs migrant workers to help cultivate 90 acres of tobacco on his family's farm near Oxford.
The stories of these men and their families, as well as director Cynthia Hill's memories of growing up in a tobacco farming community, reveals the human side of this controversial crop.
Tobacco Money Feeds My Family is produced by Cynthia Hill and Curtis Gaston. More information about KET programming and education services, as well as how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.