Peanuts and Cotton

Suffolk, VA. Peanut Capital of the World!: Peanuts (Arachis hypogea). Native or non-native? Like most of our food crops, peanuts are a non-native species -- originally from South America -- brought to the United States for food. The peanut is in the bean family, it is a legume which among other things, like being high in protein, means it is capable of taking nitrogen (a plant food) from the air and putting it in the soil where other plants can use it to grow leaves. The plant is easily grown, with the roots requiring significant space to produce the nuts underground.

It took the long route to get here; from Brazil to Europe to Africa and then the United States. African slaves brought peanuts with them as a food source and for a long time peanuts were considered a food for pigs and folks condemned to live in poverty. Peanuts took off as an industry at the turn of the century, notably because of the efforts of George Washington Carver. Carver experimented with rotating peanuts and cotton and the peanut increased the yield of the cotton crop! From this point onward, cotton growing in the South was changed forever, and peanuts became a major crop. Carver helped the blossoming industry by finding, or creating, over 300 different uses for peanuts -- butter, oil, shoe polish, etc.. You might even know the peanut song, "Eating Goober Peas," or peanuts!