By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor
There’s nothing like the sharp crack of wood hitting the ball followed by the roar of the home crowd, with the smell of peanuts wafting through the air. It’s an experience many baseball fans are missing this year as Minor League Baseball remains shuttered and Major League Baseball (MLB) set a shortened season in front of empty stands.
It’s weighing heavily on the minds of peanut farmers in Texas, according to Texas Peanut Producers Board Executive Director Shelly Nutt.
Because Texas peanuts are mainly grown using irrigation, Nutt said they are usually of a consistent quality, making them a sought-after commodity.
Texas is the only state to grow all four types of peanuts: Runner, Spanish, Valencia and Virginia. Although peanut butter sales have significantly increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, Virginia peanuts are not suited for that purpose.
“Those Virginia peanuts are a higher-quality peanut, since they’re grown to be harvested and used in-shell. They’re protected from the time the seed goes into the ground until they’re harvested. Farmers are doing everything they can to make sure the shell quality is good, that it doesn’t get too dark, that it doesn’t get rained on, and they also get paid more for it. And in 2019, we had a great crop of Virginias,” Nutt said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network.
But the high-quality crop is currently going uneaten.
“They were already bagged up, cleaned, roasted, salted, packaged into bags and ready to go to baseball games. Now, after the pandemic, we have all of 2019 sitting in warehouses bagged and ready to go,” she said. “And we have the 2020 crop already in the ground and growing. So, we have to figure out how to move those peanuts out of the warehouses, and get them into consumers’ hands.”
To help, the National Peanut Board has developed a new campaign encouraging consumers to eat in-shell peanuts at home while watching sports.
“We’ll soon start seeing some commercials on Fox Sports stations basically encouraging consumers to eat in-shell peanuts while you’re at home watching baseball games or football games, whatever sports we get to have. Buy peanuts and eat them in your living room and just help out our peanut farmers,” she said. “We know they’re a healthy snack, and maybe it’ll bring back a little bit of nostalgia. Hopefully, it’ll help with that oversupply.”
Most peanut farmers receive contracts on the crop prior to planting, so while 2020 won’t be a bad year to sell peanuts, it’s 2021 that has farmers like Gaines County Farm Bureau member Otis Johnson uneasy.
“Luckily, like most people in West Texas, our peanuts are contracted early in the year. I already have my contract set for Virginias for this year, so the price is actually pretty good. What happens down the road for next year is what’s going to be interesting to see,” Johnson said.
In a normal year, the National Peanut Board estimates about four million bags of peanuts are sold at MLB games. So, those empty stands will create a huge surplus, possibly crashing peanut prices.
But Johnson said the increase in peanut butter consumption will help use some of the surplus created by the lack of ballpark sales. He noted exports to China are up 40 percent, too.
“Even though we’re not selling a lot of peanuts at ball games, we’re exporting more and we’re converting a lot more,” Johnson said. “People are staying home, and evidently, they’re eating more peanut butter. So, it’s not all bad.”
Click here to see how peanuts are harvested.