I did a brief search yesterday and found a few Co-op's but I think they sell only Internationaly.
Perhaps we should start a new topic on this to spread the idea around the group.
The few things I have found out are this:
The USDA has 117 grades of Tobacco!
I have yet to find their definition of what the grades mean or what grades we would be interested in using.
The Co-op page I visited appeared to sell in lots with one of the smaller lots being over 450 lbs. and the prices are between $2-2.90 a pound.
We would have to pay taxes to the feds if we got a lot of this and probably have it shipped to a low tax state for repackaging and fowarding to distribute it to members of the potential Co-op.
I have no idea if were breaking the law as long as we pay the taxes on this nor do I know if we need a special license to act as a distributer.
Then we have to consider that we are looking for a finished product like what we are buying retail now, so the question comes up that I doubt few farmers have the processing equipment to yield a finished type product. The Co-op page I saw appeared to offer the finished product so that would be the place to start and see what were looking at.
I think to make this work, were going to need 50 people in our Co-op who will buy 10lbs. each for a total of 500lbs. if we can do that and get our price down to $5 bucks or so a lb. then we will save a bunch of $$$$ over paying retail at about $25 a lb.
Another thing to consider is how long 10lbs. is going to last for the average buyer. In my case it would be a 6-8 month supply, but the more members we have, the more we can spread around to make this work.
I think the first thing that needs to be done is to check the law.
It looks to me that the feds are trying to get every angle on this covered so they can collect their taxes or proscute anyone trying to get around their rules.
Anyone here from a Tobacco growing state (NC, SC, VA, KY etc.) should join us on this as I think they would be a better information source than us East or West coast insurgents.
Any thoughts any of you have are worth discussing and perhaps we can better hone this idea with brighter minds than mine

Charles: Yeah we would have to go to NYC, thats where the ban problem began, right?
What I have in mind is get a few hundred smokers to meet there and go into a place where smoking is banned and all light up in defiance of their law, we could chain ourselves together and wait for the law to separate us and drag us off to jail but I think it would be wiser to scatter before the law got there in force in order to avoid paying any fines to the scumbag city while at the same time forcing them to call in the reserves.