Farmer hopes to cash in on new crop of peanuts

BROSELEY — Lee Lewis has been farming in eastern Butler County his entire life, carrying on a tradition at Gator Hole Farms his grandfather started more than seven decades ago.

Farming, however, can have a lot of ups and downs, being nearly completely dependent on the weather. Some years can have good production, while others don’t, and prices can vary widely from year to year.

“Grain prices haven’t been good for a few years, so I was looking for something different and was threatening to grow cotton,” Lewis, 43, said as he drove around a large field along the Black River earlier this week.

The field, green and lush, wasn’t planted in soybeans, corn, rice or other “normal” crops for the region, but instead, it was full of peanuts.

“I’m the only person in Butler County growing peanuts,” Lewis said, noting the next closest producers were in the Kennett area.

The idea to grow peanuts, Lewis said, came from a friend who recommended he look into a new company based in Jonesboro, Arkansas, called Delta Peanut, LLC.

Lewis got a prospectus of the farmer-owned company and liked what he saw.

“I thought we could grow the things, so I basically jumped into it,” he said.

All new equipment had to be purchased for the peanut crop, Lewis said, including combines, planters, diggers and carts, so there was a considerable financial risk.

“I was a bit apprehensive about it because it was a whole new thing,” he recalled.

Buying into the company over the winter, Lewis set into action a plan to begin producing peanuts this summer, but it wasn’t smooth sailing.

“I had planned for almost 1,000 acres of peanuts,” he said, “but the weather this spring was unbelievable.”

Still, he was able to get 925 acres planted during brief dry spells.

“They’re supposed to be planted in April,” Lewis said of the peanuts, which typically grow for 140 days. “Ours kind of got planted late, but most were in by mid-May.”

The actual planting, he said, was much slower than normal because of how it is done.

“We used a modified Case planter because the seeds are so big,” he said. “The seeds are so big that we only got about 11 acres planted per fill-up.”

Now, Lewis and his crew ensure his peanut fields are watered regularly to keep them in top shape.

“They look good to us, and there are a lot of peanuts on them,” he said.

A crop scout from Alabama agreed, saying Lewis’ crop looks “phenomenal.”

Growing the peanuts, Lewis said, has been a good change of pace.

“It’s fun for me and my dad and the guys who work for us because it’s new and it’s different. It’s not the same old, same old,” he said.

With the late planting, the peanut harvest will be delayed.

“We’d like to start digging the first of September, but we’re probably going to be looking at late September instead,” he said.

“Our expectation is to make three tons of peanuts per acre,” Lewis said, noting that figure was on the high side of the real potential.

Once harvested, Lewis said, the peanuts will be taken to Delta Peanut’s processing plant in Jonesboro.

The $70 million dollar shelling facility still is under construction and won’t be ready for this fall’s harvest when it shows up, but, Lewis said, plans are to store the crop and process it in the spring.

“They’re still going to be in the shell when we deliver them,” he said. “They will shell them, then divide them into the cracked ones, the split ones and those really nice pretty ones.”

The “rougher-looking” ones, he said, likely will go to peanut butter production operations, with leading brands Jif located in Memphis and Skippy in Little Rock.

While Lewis said he really hasn’t been worried about potential yields, he does think about the future of the upstart Delta Peanut company.

“I know I can grow them and we can get the job done, but I hope they do what they’re supposed to do because I have no control,” he said. “At the end of the day, if they process the peanuts and don’t sell them to end users, then I don’t know how it’s going to work.”

Still, he remains optimistic.

“Rice, which came along in the 1980s around here, has been good to everybody,” he said. “So, maybe, peanuts will be good to me. We’ll find out.”

Gator Hole Farms' Lee Lewis is happy with his first-year production of peanuts, which are destined to be sent to the new Delta Peanut processing plant in Jonesboro, Ark., after their September harvest.Paul Davis