Peanuts - does anyone grow them and sell them? What's the legality?

[newbury]

I like peanuts and peanut butter. But the darn stuff has gotten to be $3 a pound!!

I've grown them before also. REAL easy in the right soil/climate. Great for the soil. Easy to process. Good yields, over 3,000 lbs/ acre.

But when BRIEFLY looking into it I ran across few articles on doing it commercially.

In the Good Morning thread:

I have planted peanuts in my garden and they grew. They require sandy soil. Here is a pic of the peanuts after I pulled them out of the ground and put them on the fence to dry. As you can see there is quite a bit of foliage. In a large field, after it goes through the combine, a tractor would rake it up and then square bale it. There are no peanuts grown in Lee county any more. The government issued allotments but then the government bought back the allotments that allowed peanut selling/planting. Without the allotments you cannot sell the peanuts. My Dad had two Peanut fields, about 50 acres and he did make peanut hay after the peanuts were harvested. Now those field are coastal hay. Lee County Peanut Co still sells peanuts but no longer processes them. Basically they are just a storefront retailer where you can buy as many pounds shelled or unshelled. The peanuts are grown and processed in other parts of Texas I think or they could even get them from out of state, I'll have to find out.
<snip>

Apparently it's heavily regulated.

So does anyone here grow them and sell them?

If I plant a half acre and want to sell 1,000 lbs locally am I liable to be busted?

/edit -

Peanut Price Highlights.
Peanut prices received by farmers for all farmer stock peanuts averaged 22.8 cents per pound for the week ending October 14, down 0.5 cent from the previous week.Oct 20, 2017

at 3,000 lbs/acre and $0.228/lb that's almost $700/acre.

 

[oosik]

Huh......peanut allotments. Being about as far away from peanuts, and still being in the USA, this is interesting info.

 

[mcfarmall]

The "allotments" are probably some sort of government subsidy to prop up the prices of peanuts for the farmers that participate. Kind of like the program where you set land aside and are required to mow it a couple times a year and the government pays you money.

 

[oosik]

AH - much like the CRP(Conservation Reserve Program) programs we have out in this neck of the woods.

 

[3Ts]

Sounds like CRP to me as well. Most farmers require a subsidy to make money on farming so the government controls who, what, when, etc when they provide money. I would think you could grow and sell them as long as "public health" is not a concern and you're not asking the government for money. For example, Selling raw milk straight from the cow fits into the category of "public health" and therefor government regulated even for 1 cow. (I think production for your own use is still allowed.)

Around here, we used to be the peanut capital of Texas, but then the fuel for irrigation pumps cost more than the crop was worth so the farmers changed to something else.

 

[Oldpath05]

Growing peanuts<<<<<<I know you'll have a better chance of becoming a US president some day...............

 

[Industrial Toys]

Speaking of Peanuts and Presidents. How about a self sustaining scheme to run our cars on peanut oil? That would smell good! Actually I learned from some cooking show that Peanut oil has a very high burning temperature making it great for BBQing.

 

[TractorGuy]

I don't know much about farming these days. 60 years ago I was living on my granddaddy's tobacco farm and he had an allotment for that. If I remember correctly he could only grow 2 or 3 acres on a 75 acre farm. it

 

[paulsharvey]

Pretty sure the allotment gives you as the farmer a garranteed bottom price, or something, but large growers have buyers before the even think about planting. If you don't already have a contract, it's pure gamble,

 

[paulsharvey]

I will also add, here in north florida, they don't normally bale the peanut straw anymore, because from what I'm told, the added grit and sand wear out the ballers and aren't worth it