In 2011 ARVALIS and the University of Kentucky started a partnership in order to offer cheaper means of production and allow specialisation of French tobacco farmers.

The first steps were completed between 2011 and 2014 as follows:

• Adaptation of French production techniques to the harvesting process with self-propelled GCHI 'Gold Standard' Burley tobacco harvesting system: 5 hours to harvest 1 hectare with 2 workers (20 000 plants).
• Trials on curing racks in southern France: 7 weeks for curing was needed when harvesting in August.

The purpose of this study was to test the Cured Plant Segmenting/Separator System CP3S designed by G.B Day V, T.D. Smith and L.G. Wells (University of Kentucky) and then perform the threshing of the tobacco material obtained.

The machine which cuts stalks and leaves at the same time, and then separates the stalk segments from leaf segments, allows to strip 4800 plants per hour with 6-7 persons, meaning 35 labour hours per hectare, compared to 200 hours per hectare usually required.

The resulting raw material being no longer quite the same, the stripped tobacco leaves were imported to France to be threshed in the transformation factory of France Tobacco in Sarlat. The results were positive as regards the rib rates of the final product: 66.10% of strips compared to 64.52% (which was the average in 2008-2013), but slightly penalised in terms of segment size: the percentage of strips over ½ inch was 7% lower than usual (65.91%). This rate could be increased if the tobacco materiel was dryer before being introduced into the threshing line. This innovative stripping system gives a modified final product (leaf segments instead of whole leaves), which seems to suit the manufacturers, while providing interesting prospects for the competitivity of tobacco farmers in France.