Peanut Farming: Making the Grade

Peanut Farming:  Making the Grade

In part three, noted peanut enthusiast Russ Robinson travels to the Mississippi Delta, right above Yazoo City, and talks to Malcolm Broome about how peanuts are graded for quality, and how peanuts are cared for before they make it to the market.

Notes about Mississippi and peanuts:

• Mississippi is more recent entry in the peanut growing states.  Georgia is number one, but Mississippi is 7th in the nation in growing peanuts, outgrowing Virgina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arizona, Tennessee and California.
• Mississippi grows 3 percent of the nations peanuts and rising.
• For 2013, the Southeast region (Georgia-Florida-Alabama-Mississippi) grew about 72 percent of all USA-grown peanuts.
• Mississippi producers have planted an estimated 50,000 acres of peanuts in the state this year, more than triple the acres planted in previous years and the most acres since 1943.