Producers from 4 States Meeting in Panama City Beach
By Clint Thompson
The Southern Peanut Farmers Federation is in Panama City Beach, Florida this weekend for its annual meeting. Producers from Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi are meeting to discuss trends impacting the industry now and continuing into the future.
Joy Crosby, assistant executive director of the Georgia Peanut Commission, discussed the importance of the organization meeting again this year.
“This year is our 23rd annual Southern Peanut Growers Conference. The theme is “Together Towards Tomorrow.” It is really fitting for this conference. It’s bringing farmers and other individuals involved in the peanut industry together to discuss some of the hot topics and issues that they might be facing and also looking towards tomorrow at what’s to come down the pipeline, how it could impact them on the farm or how also it could help them at their farm,” Crosby said.
Topics on the Agenda
Various topics are on the agenda for Friday and Saturday’s meeting.
“One that is very important to the peanut industry focuses on school nutrition. We really want to look at how important school nutrition is especially when you include peanuts or peanut butter. We have some representatives to discuss some of the nutritional benefits as well as an update on peanut allergies,” Crosby said.
“We’ll also have some representatives from the Florida School Nutrition Association as well as the Lee County Florida Food Nutrition Services in Florida to discuss some of the things that they’re doing and how they’ve worked including peanuts and peanut butter in their school nutrition programs.”
The event also includes a Friday session on the “Future of the Farm,” focusing on Ag labor and carbon credits. Congressman Michael Cloud (Texas-R) will also join a panel on Saturday to discuss the ‘State of U.S. Peanut Policy.’