During the interwar period tobacco was one of Greece’s main exports, but its rise to such an important position was slow at coming. Initially, tobacco was grown in relatively small quantities in three or four areas of Greece (Agrinio being one of them) to satisfy domestic demand. All this changed after the upheavals of the 1912-1922 period, a decade during which Greece was almost always at war that ended with the Asia Minor disaster. The annexation of Macedonia and Thrace, as well as the arrival of 1.5 million refugees created a new dynamic in the cultivation of tobacco. The new regions were well-known for their tobacco, while many refugees specialized in tobacco farming.