2014 Arkansas Peanut Production Down, But High Quality
Arkansas Is Now Considered One Of The Nation’s Top Peanut-Producing States By The National Peanut Board
LONOKE, ARK.
Despite cooler average temperatures throughout the year in Arkansas,
peanut crop yields in the northeastern corner of the state were strong,
with higher-than-expected quality throughout.
Travis Faske, an extension plant pathologist with the University of
Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said most of the peanuts
brought for purchase from Arkansas growers to each of the state’s two
buying points, located in Pocahontas and Walnut Ridge, were registering
on the mid- to high-70’s on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Total
Sound Mature Kernel scale, or TSMK.
Bill Branch, a professor and peanut breeding researcher with the
University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, said the TSMK scale measures
the percent of peanut pods that are whole and free of mold or other
defects. Although the scale runs from 0-100, it’s uncommon to see
harvests rating below 60 or above 80, Branch said.
Faske said Arkansas peanut farmers, generally concentrated in
Lawrence, Randolph and Clay counties, produced an average yield of
4,000-4,200 pounds per acre.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture does not currently track peanut
production in Arkansas, but Lauren Highfill Williams, a spokesperson for
the National Peanut Board, said approximately 21,600 tons of peanuts
were inspected this year in Arkansas.
Arkansas was identified by the National Peanut Board as a major
peanut-producing state for the first time in 2014. Although overall
peanut production in the state is down from 2012 and 2013 numbers,
Arkansas is still emerging as a strong producer for the nuts as several
other states have shifted away from the crop.
Scott Monfort, a peanut agronomist with the University of Georgia in
Tifton, said about 10,000 acres in Arkansas were dedicated to peanut
cultivation throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when a federal market quota
system limited the amount of peanuts that could be sold domestically.
When the 2002 Farm Bill eliminated the quota system, many Arkansas
farmers gave up peanut farming as the marketplace became more
competitive, Monfort said.
Peanut Harvesting in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, October 2012.
U of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture file photo by Kerry Rodtnick
Throughout the 2000s both Oklahoma and Texas decreased their peanut
outputs as drought made water scarce, he said. The Clint Williams
Company, a large peanut producer and aggregator based in Madill,
Oklahoma, began looking for new producers in Arkansas, which was not
experiencing the same water shortages, Monfort said. During the ensuing
decade, Arkansas growers gradually returned to higher peanut production
levels.
Faske said Arkansas farmers cultivated the 2014 harvest on about
10,000 acres. He said that the harvest, which typically takes place in
October, was delayed by about two weeks for many producers after a major
rain event in the early fall.
“We’ve actually dropped acreage,” Faske said. “Last year, we were
about 12,000 acres, and the year before, we were about 18,000.”
Faske said the decline in peanut acreage was following the drop in
commodity pricing, which has seen payments for peanuts drop from about
$750 a ton to about $450 a ton in recent years. But growers already
invested in peanut harvesting equipment are likely to keep the crop in
their rotations, especially if they also grow cotton.
In November, Clint Williams filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and sold
its shelling plant in Madill to the Golden Peanut Company, a subsidiary
of Archer Daniels Midland. Monfort said this added an element of
uncertainty to the future of peanut farming in the region.
Faske said that cultivating peanuts dramatically reduces the impact
of Southern root-knot nematode, a major pest afflicting cotton
production in Arkansas. As their name implies, the nematodes cause large
knots to form throughout the roots of affected plants, and starve them
of nutrients and adequate water.
Faske said that some cotton farmers had nearly doubled their annual
cotton lint yield in particular fields after rotating peanuts through a
single growing season.
“The nematode population is never completely destroyed, but rotating
peanuts through a field causes their population numbers to crash below
the threshold where they can really damage the cotton roots,” Faske
said.
There are four types of peanuts typically produced throughout the
country: Spanish peanuts, which are typically used in candy bars; runner
peanuts, which are typically used in peanut butter; Virginia peanuts,
which are typically served in ballparks and restaurants; and Valencia
peanuts, which are identified as having more than three seeds in each
pod. Faske said most of the peanuts grown in Arkansas are runners. ∆