Cooperative Living October 2020 - 16
CoverFocus | by Steven Johnson, Staff Writer
Digging in the Dirt
The peanut business in Virginia is all it's cracked up to be, and more
C
hris Parker is checking to see
if there is money underground.
He leans over a small plant
and brushes aside its lush, feather-like
leaves. Reaching under it, he tinkers
with the soil and pulls out a shell half
the size of his thumb.
Parker has helped it get to this point
by fending off disease and insects. A few
more weeks, weather permitting, and
the contents of the shell - a peanut -
will be ready to start the journey from
dirt to somebody's mouth.
About four years ago, Parker, a
lifelong farmer, reintroduced peanuts
to his Woodview Farms outside of
Wakefield, Va. He had been planting
peanuts since 1976, but, like many
farmers, stopped when Congress killed
a New Deal-era price-support program
in 2002. Amid slumping grain prices
and advances in peanut science, Parker
decided to give it another whirl.
" I was looking to get a little more
income off each acre I was planting, "
he says. " I can't say growing a peanut is
any better or worse than another crop.
But with the new varieties of peanuts,
you're getting a little more yield out of
them. So that's a plus for everybody. "
14 | Cooperative Living | October 2020
A LONG HISTORY
One hundred and seventy-eight
years ago, Dr. Matthew Harris became
the first American to turn peanuts into
a commercial crop, harvesting them on
his farm near Waverly, Va., and selling
them to neighboring farmers and
townspeople for a few cents.
After the Civil War, others followed
his lead, finding the sandy loam soil in
southeastern Virginia to be the perfect
medium for bountiful peanut harvests.
By 1880, Harris and his partners started
Wakefield, Va.,
farmer Chris
Parker checks his
peanut plants.
the first factory in the country to clean
and market peanuts.
There have been fits and starts
in the intervening years, but today,
approximately 175 Virginia farmers
harvest 111 million pounds of peanuts
on about 24,000 acres. They farm
mostly in the Peanut Row jurisdictions
north and south of U.S. 460, where
road signs and tiny storefronts beckon
travelers to sample the local wares.
At 2% of the U.S. total, Virginia is
not the top peanut-producing state in
the country; that honor
belongs to Georgia. But
peanuts from Georgia,
Florida and Alabama lack
the impressive size, texture
and flavor of Virginia
peanuts. Consequently,
you're more likely to
encounter Deep South
peanuts in peanut butter
or as your unsatisfying
snack option on an airline.
In contrast, Virginia
markets its offspring as
the Cadillac of peanuts,
in and out of the shell. The
value of peanut production
co-opliving.com
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Cooperative Living October 2020
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living October 2020
Cooperative Living October 2020 - 1
Cooperative Living October 2020 - 2
Cooperative Living October 2020 - 3
Cooperative Living October 2020 - 4
Cooperative Living October 2020 - 5
Cooperative Living October 2020 - 6
Cooperative Living October 2020 - 7
Cooperative Living October 2020 - 8
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