UNCOVERING TREASURE.

• Author: Saylor, Teri
• Position: FARMING NC: EXPLORING AGRIBUSINESS

Consumers want more peanuts and products made from them. That's putting North Carolina farmers and their bumper crop in a sweet spot.

Brad West is a fifth-generation farmer in the Wayne County community of Fremont. He and his family work about 6,000 acres. They grow a variety of crops, including cotton, sweet potatoes, com and soybeans, and have a small community strawberry patch. They raise turkeys and pigs, too. "This was my great-great grandfather's farm," he says. "I come from several generations of farmers, so I guess when I grew up, it was kind of a no brainer that I would get into the family business. I didn't know anything else."

West and his family have been growing peanuts on 1,200 acres since 2007. He describes his 2021 crop as "above average." He isn't alone. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that 2021 was a near-record year for peanuts. North Carolina farmers, for example, harvested 114,000 acres, 9,000 acres more than the year prior. The yield per acre of 4,350 pounds exceeded the 2020 estimate by 450 pounds and the state's 10-year average by almost 350 pounds. And, at 496 million pounds, the state's peanut production increased 21 % from the year prior.

March is National Peanut Month, and North Carolina peanut growers and lovers have much to celebrate. "North Carolina ranks fifth in the nation in peanut production," says Ashley Collins, CEO of the North Carolina Peanut Growers Association. "We grow a variety of peanut here called the Virginia type, which is used primarily in gourmet nuts, such as the peanuts you find in stores and specialty food markets."

Collins says about 500 North Carolina farmers plant peanuts in April and harvest them in October and November. It wasn't long ago when there was only a few. West, a member of the North Carolina Peanut Growers Association Board, remembers when a quota system, which lasted 60 years, discouraged peanut farming. "In Wayne County, there was one farmer who had about 2 acres worth of quota, and that was it," he says. "After the quota system ended [with the passage of the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill], we waited a few years and then started, and we've been raising peanuts about 15 years."

The decision to grow peanuts is paying off for West and his family.

They have a history of growing cotton, but when cotton prices plummeted almost 20 years ago, they paused planting it for a few years and looked for a different crop that would thrive in...