Exploring the future of Montgomery County's historical crop: Dr. Don Sudbrink to share insights at APSU's final Tobacco Talk

(Posted on Tuesday, June 13, 2023)

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn - The sixth and final program of the Tobacco Talk series, hosted by the Clarksville Arts and Heritage Council and Austin Peay State University’s (APSU) College of Arts and Letters, asks Dr. Don Sudbrink, chair of the APSU Department of Agriculture, to look toward the future of this historically important crop to Montgomery County’s development. 

At 4 p.m. Tuesday, June 27 in APSU’s Trahern Building, Sudbrink will present recent trends in land use and tobacco production in Montgomery County as observed from U.S. Department of Agriculture reports and other data sources. Drawing from these trends, he will discuss implications for the future. 

Some of Sudbrink’s observations may surprise those who attend. For example, while the number of farms and farmers growing tobacco has steadily declined over the last few decades, the actual acreage of tobacco grown in the county has rebounded in recent years. Even though burley tobacco production has continued to decline, dark-fired tobacco has “fired up” and recovered from the low levels that immediately followed the “tobacco buyout” in 2006.  

The discussion will also cover the impacts of increased urbanization and development pressures on agriculture in Montgomery County, as well as potential alternative opportunities that tobacco farmers might pursue. 

Sudbrink specializes in plant sciences and pest management and earned his B.S. degree in agriculture from the University of Delaware. He continued his education with an M.S. in entomology and plant pathology from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where his research focused on tobacco budworms; and a Ph.D. from Auburn University in entomology. 

Parking for this Tobacco Talk is available in the staff lot fronting Eighth Street. The series is sponsored in part by the Tennessee Arts Commission and by federal award number SLFRP5534 awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.