My grandad used to grow his own as well, he was a poor as poor could be subsistence farmer in rural mid-c20th Spain. They made their own wine and firewater too, customs and excise didn't bother them. No roads, it was still mediaeval times for Spain in those days.
My grandad used grow his own tobacco and then send it off to get dried and he’d get it back in the post.
It gets grown in research a lot as it’s a model organism so you can change the genetics comparatively easily.