Arkansas farmers are planting more peanuts, hitting record acreage as the profitable crop gains popularity with growers throughout the South.
The yellow-flowered plant is grown mainly in the northeastern part of the state. The increase in peanut production is slowly changing the state’s rural landscape as farmers shift away from more traditional crops such as cotton, whose distinctive white tufts are disappearing.
“As you walk out in the field, you don’t see any peanuts,” said Travis Faske, extension plant pathologist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “The part that you eat at the Texas Roadhouse or the baseball field, those grow underground.”
Faske said early estimates put Arkansas’ peanut acreage at about 22,500 acres. That’s up about 22 percent from the state’s previous high of 18,500 acres in 2012, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Faske said Arkansas farmers are also growing an extra 4,000 acres of peanuts north of the Arkansas-Missouri border.
“Farmers can see it making a profit,” he said.
Tab Wildy, a farmer in northeast Arkansas near Manila, said his farm has grown cotton for about 30 years. Last year, he replaced some cotton acreage with peanuts as cotton became less popular and profitable.
“Last year’s the first year we tried,” he said. “We were trying to look for something to make a little bit more money.”
Many cotton farmers are abandoning the crop for a healthier bottom line, usually by turning to soybeans.
About 1 million acres of cotton were planted in Arkansas in 2000. That number has fallen to a projected 330,000 acres for 2016, according to USDA data.
Some of those farmers are looking to peanuts rather than soybeans. Last year Wildy planted around 750 acres of peanuts. This year he is doubling that number.
“They are taking off in our area,” he said. “Everyone’s trying to grow them now.”
Nationally, peanut stocks are expected to reach 1.44 million tons by the beginning of August, a 37 percent increase from the same time last year, according to USDA data.
Peanut farmers also benefit from government subsidies. The federal peanut program supplements farmers when the national peanut price drops below guaranteed levels.
If peanut prices hover at current levels — 19 cents a pound, down 14 percent from the same time last year — about $800 million will be spent this year in subsidies, according to a congressional research report.
Arkansas peanut production is fairly new, hitting the National Peanut Board designation “major peanut producing state” in 2014. But the state’s peanut industry is still relatively small. The top peanut-producer in the country, Georgia, planted about 730,000 acres of peanuts this year, according to the USDA.
Arkansas grows mostly runner peanuts, the kind used for peanut butter. Faske said irrigation and Arkansas’ climate make growing peanuts more convenient for farmers.
Arkansas relies on irrigation for about 90 percent of its farms while states like Georgia in the Southeast have only about 50 percent irrigated. This means Arkansas can produce higher quality peanuts more consistently.
“Warm sunshine and warmer days benefit peanuts,” Faske said. “They like it hot and sunny.”