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.”

Today’s peanut farmer spotlight is Ryan Jenkins from Jay, Florida ?

“When you love farming, it can be your worst day…everything can tear up but that night when you’re laying in bed, you absolutely cannot wait to go back the next day” – Ryan Jenkins

Ryan has been farming peanuts for 23 years, and also farms cotton, soybeans, corn, wheat, and oats. When asked what his favorite part was about farming peanuts, Ryan explained that is was honestly just farming in general. Ryan is not a planner, so farming works out good for him because it’s always changing, he doesn’t do the same thing everyday. He also loves watching them grow and keeping up with different herbicide and fungicide programs. To Ryan, and many other farmers, an advantage of farming is that it’s seasonal and each season brings a new task, such as digging or harvesting.

Ryan’s favorite way to eat peanuts are boiled, and added that there is nothing like the first boil of the year on July 4th. When asked if he prefers creamy or crunchy peanut butter, Ryan responded with creamy!

The most challenging part of peanut farming for Ryan has been that no matter how hard you work, things just don’t work out sometimes; you can control a lot but you can’t control the weather and breakdowns.

Ryan’s prediction for this year’s peanut crop is that in the area he is located in, the crops look strong. He believes that with optimism and faith, it’ll all work out in the end.
Some advice for young farmers that Ryan would like to share is to lean on their elders experience, be in touch with technology, and talk to God everyday. (We LOVE that advice!)

See pictures and Facebook article by clicking here —>  https://www.facebook.com/floridapeanutproducersassociation/posts/199224380712031?notif_id=1531318312861948&notif_t=page_post_reaction

Today’s Peanut Farmer Spotlight is Josh Davis of Chipley, Florida. Josh has been farming peanuts for 16 years and his favorite part of being a peanut farmer is picking them. When asked what his favorite way to eat peanuts was, Josh responded with “peanut butter straight out of the jar”.

We asked Josh what has been the most challenging part of peanut farming, and he responded with “This year getting them planted…sometimes it may be planting, spraying, picking, or getting the right price for them. Josh quoted his father, Sonny Davis, by saying that his dad recently used “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get” from Forrest Gump to describe peanut farming this year.

Josh was asked for his prediction for this year’s peanut crop and he explained, “Well we’re always optimistic to having a really good year, we’re always positive…we’re optimistic for an exceptional year…maybe”.

We had so much fun visiting with Josh in the peanut field! Keep an eye out for our next Peanut Farmer Spotlight to be posted on our page in the upcoming weeks! ??☀