French brown tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) air curing. Tobacco, a member of the nightshade family of plants, is grown for its leaves which are air dried to produce brown tobacco. Tastes, health concerns, and French and EU legislation have radically changed the size and type of the French industry since this photograph was taken at the end of the 20th century. In the region of the Dordogne, tobacco drying timber barns were a common sight and even in 2014, 9450 metric tonnes of tobacco were produced in France. This represents just 0.01 percent of French agricultural land devoted to tobacco cultivation. In 2016, 16.77 billion cigarettes were produced in France. Traditional brown tobacco, which has a very strong, distinctive flavour, has now been largely replaced with American style Virginia varieties and the iconic French cigarette brands such as Gauloises and Gitanes are now manufactured in Poland and the Netherlands.