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Headlines from 1957: Washington Woes Plague Peanut Planter
Published 9/26/2009 in History Page
By JOAN GEORGE
Glen Gaskill down at Moscow has a patch of peanuts.
They're good ones with the fat kernels turning a delicate pink, which means they're about ready for their pre-frost harvest — sometime around the first of October.
But the peanuts pose a problem and Gaskill is pondering, "what do you do with nine acres of them."
What he hoped was to be a money-making venture has turned into trouble -- the kind caused by government red tape that sometimes bests the best of agricultural ventures.
And in a nutshell, what he's ended up with is a paper peanut profit.
The whole thing started last spring.
Gaskill looked at a lowered support price on maize and then at the impressive $210-a-ton support on peanuts.
"I didn't see why you couldn't grow peanuts in western Kansas, so I decided to put in a few acres just to experiment," Gaskill said. "I thought I'd make a little money, too."
His reasoning was like this:
His investment on one acre of peanuts, including their harvesting, would come to about $45. And even hazarding a conservative guess, he thought he could sell for $125 an acre.
And that kind of profit isn't peanuts.
Which turned out to be so right.
It seems there are more peanuts than the country can use — they're a government surplus crop. In Kansas you have to have an allotment to grow them.
"And there's an 8.3 cents a pound penalty on them if I could put them on the market. Trouble is, I didn't know all that when I planted them last June," Gaskill said.
So he's decided about the only thing he can do is bale the crop and feed it to cattle. Government regulations say the peanuts have to be put through a hammer-mill to do that. It seems there's just not an uncomplicated way to get rid of peanuts.
"They tell me that the leaves of the plants are richer than alfalfa. Cattle will get fat on peanuts, but it's a soft fat. You have to supplement with something else."
Gaskill bought the Spanish-type seed peanuts in Oklahoma and that was where he hoped to market them, not for eating but for oil.
He planted them last June, irrigated them three times and used about the same cultivation methods he's used in his fields of maize that border the peanut plat.
The plants are thriving and Gaskill thinks that as far as the product is concerned, the experiment has been a success. In fact, he's willing to try it again next year.
"I'm still not discouraged. If I can get an allotment next year, I'll put in another crop. I'm convinced it's a good idea — if I can just sell the darned things."
Gaskill's friend down the road also got into the peanut business. Dick Kapp planted about seven acres. He's not discouraged, either, and he, like Gaskill, thinks their plan for peanuts was practical.
"One thing is certain," Gaskill said, "we've learned a lot about growing peanuts through trial and error. See all those weeds? I didn't get into the field soon enough to cultivate. I waited about the same length of time I do for maize, but it should have been sooner."
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