Hired hand in a tobacco field, Jackson, KY, 1978. The owners of this field klndly put up my traveling companion and myself for the night, after meeting us by a roadside flea market. 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
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Hired hand in a tobacco field, Jackson, KY, 1978. The owners of this field klndly put up my traveling companion and myself for the night, after meeting us by a roadside flea market. 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 

Jon Chase

Contact

Jon Chase works as a staff photographer for Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, and is available for freelance work. He specializes in portraits on location, sports, and photojournalism.  

Jon Chase 

Staff Photographer 

Harvard Public Affairs and Communications 

114 Mt. Auburn St. 6th fl 

Cambridge, MA 01238 

e-mail jon@jonchase.com