"peanut crop" news and stories

Mississippi's peanut production has sprouted so significantly over the last decade that the state's growers association last month generated $100,000 to send three truckloads of peanut butter to Haiti.

"Peanut butter is the perfect food in a situation like this," the association's executive director, Malcolm Broome, explained in a release. "Peanut butter is portable, nonperishable and a very good source of protein."

Not long ago, a few trucks could have held the state's entire peanut crop. A strict quota system kept Mississippi's farmers from planting the legume that's long been a staple of Georgia and Virginia fields. Since the quota was lifted in 2002, Mississippi's peanut acreage has surged from 2,000 to 20,000, with production increasing every year but one, when weather got in the way.

"We've had a lot of people really interested in peanuts," says Mike Howell, area agronomist for Mississippi State University's extension service.