Mississippi's Peanut Industry Is Taking Off

Peanut Farm in George County

Mississippi’s peanut industry is taking off, and each year more small farmers are integrating the crop into their rotations. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports on why the peanut is turning out to be such a good fit for Mississippi.

About twenty miles north of the Gulf Coast not far from the Alabama border sits George County, one of the largest peanut growing areas in the state of Mississippi. Mike Steede and his brother Heath, farm 100 acres of peanuts near Lucedale and on a day late last month they were taking shifts in a large tractor trying to harvest before the next rain,

“These peanuts are picked by the combine, they are loaded into a trailer and they are graded. Our grades are really good here in Mississippi and so our peanuts go into the premium products, peanut butter, snack bars, Snickers, Peanut M&M’s that sort of thing.”

The peanut industry is relatively new to Mississippi, and really only started taking hold in the state after 2002 when the Farm Bill was done away with. That bill regulated a quota system that gave states like Georgia a relative monopoly on the industry. This year 20,000 acres of peanuts were planted in Mississippi.

“We grow some of the best quality peanuts in the world. We have high yield and we are really proud of the product that we are producing here.”

Mike Howell oversees the peanut industry for Mississippi State Extension Service,

“We’ve got some good sandy soil, that’s what you have to have to grow peanuts. We have a little bit of an advantage because we are so new and we don’t have all the disease pressures that some places have.”

Just down the road from the Steede’s main peanut farm Heath Steede is standing in the middle of a 40 acre plot of land planted with another crop of peanuts waiting to be harvested, but these are not destined for the grocery store,

“Well we are growing these for seed and this will be the first time that there has ever been any seed peanuts grown in the state of Mississippi.”

Mike Steede says while the seed production process is more extensive, being given the opportunity to grow seed is a good sign,

“You know when a new crop takes off in an area everybody kind of looks at it with a little bit of skepticism. I think that it is probably a symbol that the industry as whole recognizes Mississippi as a major peanut producing state and that we are here to stay.”

The demand for peanuts across the country has increased greatly over the past year; a direct result of what’s going on with the economy says Mike Howell,

“Peanuts are one of our cheapest sources of protein so in bad economic times, peanuts sales do seem to go up. That is exactly where we are.”

With the demand for peanuts at a high, and more acres being planted each year it would seem like Mississippi’s peanut farmers should be celebrating. But this fall has been one of the wettest on record, making harvesting a nightmare. Joe Morgan, farms 685 acres of peanuts in George County and is president of the Mississippi Peanut Growers Association,

“This field that I am trying to dig in right this minute, it’s probably some of the prettiest peanuts I have ever seen, they are beautiful right now. We got a good peanut crop but we are losing it because we can’t dig it on time this fall and all.”

Weather has been a factor for peanuts growers all across the state in areas like Aberdeen, and parts of the Delta as well as George County.

“We’ve already lost some peanuts. I’m guessing we have lost probably 20% percent of our crop so far.”

Again Mike Howell,

“If we don’t get some dry days pretty quick we are going to lose more. And I don’t mean a dry day here or there, we need weeks at a time of good dry weather to harvest these peanuts.”

Howell says there is the potential to lose up to 70% of the state’s peanut crop this year. The good news is that the weather is supposed to remain dry throughout the end of the week.