SIMS, N.C. — For four generations, Pender Sharp’s family has sold tobacco, grown on their Wilson County land.

Throughout the years they’ve added more produce products, like the broccoli crop they’re currently harvesting, to their fields.

They are one of the many North Carolina families that add to the state’s largest industry.

What You Need To Know

  •  Agriculture is North Carolina's biggest industry

  •  The FDA has proposed banning flavored and menthol cigarettes

  •  Pender Sharp is a fourth-generation tobacco farmer

  • He's concerned about the impact of a ban on farmers in North Carolina

“North Carolina's ag industry is over $100 billion. It’s the largest industry in North Carolina, and even though it may seem to be invisible, it's not. It's a huge economic impact that affects everybody in our state,” Sharp said.

Sharp has a variety of revenue-producing products, but tobacco is still the main revenue stream.

Living in eastern North Carolina is the right place for that.

“Wilson, North Carolina is the marketing hub for all the tobacco that's grown in the United States,” Sharp said.

It’s that economic impact on his farm and others throughout the state that has Sharp concerned about a proposal from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that would ban menthol and flavored cigarettes.

The proposal came over a year ago, but in October the FDA sent its final rule proposal to the Office of Management and Budget.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said the proposal would be “an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.”

Most of Sharp's products end up out of the country, but he still sells products that are used in the U.S.

“Tobacco farmers like myself that have investment in an infrastructure to grow a given amount of tobacco. We could see that quit by a third or by a half,” Sharp said.

He says he can understand the theory behind banning flavors from cigarettes, like cherry, that might entice kids, but he worries these decisions aren’t being made based on science.

“Menthol is a product that we use in our daily lives, from mint, in our mouthwash, to mints that we pick up at the cash register after a meal, and it's just an item that we use all the time," Sharp said.

Sharp isn’t the only North Carolinian concerned about the proposal.

Congressmen David Rouzer and Don Davis, a Republican and a Democrat, sent a letter to President Joe Biden, sharing their concerns about the impact the ban would have on North Carolina families and farmers.

Davis said sometimes policy is created with good intentions, but there are unintended consequences.

“We're talking about the means in which families are paying for kids to go to school right now in times of high inflation and costs. This is how families are putting food on the table. So we have to really think long and hard about what we're doing and the implications,” Davis said.