By: Brad Haire, Southeast Farm Press
The Farm Press Peanut Efficiency Award is based on production efficiency and honoring the many growers who produce the highest yields by using inputs wisely.
Awards are presented to growers from the Lower Southeast, including Alabama, Georgia, Florida; the Upper Southeast, including Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina; the Southwest, including Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico; and the Delta, including Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri.
The PEA program looks at a producer’s entire peanut operation and not just an individual farm or small plots.
“The elements of production cost and price are equally important factors in our evaluation of nominees. Marketing expertise definitely has given an edge to recent winners of the award,” says Marshall Lamb, research director for the National Peanut Research Laboratory and primary advisor of the PEA program.
A second component of the program is education. Southeast Farm Press, Delta Farm Press and Southwest Farm Press support the education element by publishing articles throughout the year focusing on peanut production efficiency and the growers who practice it.
The awards program began with the Southern Peanut Growers Conference in 2000 in conjunction with the Southern Peanut Farmers Federation and the two have grown together over the years. Since the beginning, the PEA program has honored 20 classes of deserving growers and farms from across the U.S. peanut belt.
Winners of the 2020 awards will receive an expense-paid trip for two to the Southern Peanut Growers Conference in July at the Edgewater Beach Resort in Panama City Beach, Fla.
Please submit nomination forms directly to the National Peanut Research Laboratory, or local county Extension agent, peanut specialist or economist. The deadline for all nominations is April 15, 2020. To receive a hard copy of the form, call Farm Press headquarters at 662-624-8503. Nomination forms can be found online, too.