Well peanut farmers are trying to get the rest of this crop planted in.
Only about 65 percent of the peanuts were in the ground this week and the conditions are too wet in Georgia, Florida and Alabama to finish right now. We are showing on exports that they are trying to increase exports because of the pileup of peanuts from last year’s crop.
They are now showing that through March of this year exports are at 315,000 metric tons. That is an increase of two percent over the same period last year. We continue to think that exports this year should increase six to seven percent.
Mexico and China were the only two major countries that were up with an increase. Mexico was up 18. China has come back into the market with 42 percent increase over last year.
Canada was down 15. European Union down 44 percent. United Kingdom down 26 and Japan down 10 percent.
But the peanut market is overall an increase of two percent. On peanut butter, peanut butter had a decreased export volume this year down 10 percent. Mexico and Canada were the top buyers.
Audio Reporting by Tyron Spearman for Southeast AgNet.