Visiting our peanut farmers in their fields has became something we truly enjoy! It gives us a chance to get to know them better and provide an insight to their farming journey to the public! Today’s Peanut Farmer Spotlight is Mickey Diamond from Jay, Florida ?
“I put the crop in the ground and let God do the rest.” – Mickey Diamond
Mickey has been farming peanuts for 35 years and also farms cotton. His favorite part of peanut farming is digging the peanuts, and boiled is his preferred way of eating peanuts. Mickey prefers creamy over crunchy peanut butter as well!
The most challenging part of peanut farming to Mickey has been the market side of peanut farming, “you don’t know really what the end of the year is gonna bring…but it’s also knowing how to plan next year with what the acres are going to be.” Mickey also explained that he plants the same acres of peanuts, he just changes rotation from year to year.
Mickey’s prediction for this year’s peanut crop is that as of right now, it looks like an average crop… “I don’t see a bumper crop because we had a rough start but maybe we can come out with an average crop…that’s what I’m praying for.”
With Mickey farming peanuts for 35 years, we asked him when he knew he wanted to be a peanut farmer. Mickey explained, “When I started farming, I loved the dirt too much and that’s all I’ve ever done all my life and I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else; if I had to do something else, I would be flying an airplane over the crop.”