By Belle Johnson
As fall gets closer, Alabama farmers are preparing to harvest one of their biggest crops: peanuts.
Justin Garrett grew up on his father’s farm.
“He ran a farm during my childhood in the 90s in Clayton, Alabama, and I’ve been around it my whole life. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
He now has one of his own.
“I built chicken houses when I was out of college and used that to be able to start.”
On his farm, Garrett raises chickens, cows and grows cotton. However, one of his crops has significance in Alabama history, peanuts.
“Peanut farming specifically became important for Alabama in the early 1900s when the boll weevils became a huge problem for the cotton industry,” Garrett said.
The boll weevil is a bug that eats through and lays eggs in cotton plants. When they came to the South from Mexico over a hundred years ago, they nearly destroyed the cotton crop, leaving farmers with little to sell. Farmers then started to rotate growing cotton and peanuts which slowed down the spread of the boll weevils.
“It became a very important part of our cash crops and our rotation to help control pests.”
Garrett said for a time, most of the world’s peanuts came from farms in Alabama. Today, peanuts are used to make many different types of products.
“Peanut butter, peanut oils, things that we don’t think about like candy.”
For those who want to support local peanut farmers, Garrett says the best thing to do is to shop locally.
“Pay attention to buy locally or at least U.S.-grown. Alabama-grown if possible,” Garrett said. “If you can support those industries as much as possible, that’s a big help.”
Source : troy.edu