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Western Peanut Growers Association and Gaines County producers give Senators Cruz and Cornyn representatives an inside look at the farm and industry.

Shelley E. Huguley, Editor

November 2, 2022

3 Min Read
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Talking farming on Gary and Karen Jackson's chile farm, Lea County, New Mexico, Bobbi Hanson, a representative with Senator Ted Cruz's office and peanut producer and Western Peanut Growers Association President Otis Johnson. The Jackson's farm headquarters and other row crop farms are located in neighboring Gaines County, Texas.Shelley E. Huguley

In October, I visited Gaines County, Texas, where I spent the day with Western Peanut Growers Association Executive Director Robbie Blount and the association's President Otis Johnson. Robbie had invited representatives from the offices of Senator John Cornyn (Caleb Cobb) and Senator Ted Cruz (Bobbi Hanson) to tour the area, so when I reached out looking for a harvest story, Robbie invited me to join along.

We started the day at South Plains Implement where Scotty Johnson talked about supply chain issues and the rising cost of equipment. Next, we visited Chuck Rowland's farm where Chase, his son, talked to us about the season while peanut digging was underway. Bobbi and Caleb each took a turn riding in the tractor watching over their shoulder as the digger uprooted and overturned each plant. I savored being in the field, as harvest is my favorite time of year, and smelling the freshly turned soil behind the digger.  

Next, we traveled to Lea County, New Mexico, not far from the Rowlands', where we met up with Gary and Karen Jackson to watch chile harvest. This was a first even for me. We watched as the large, sweet, bright red chiles were stripped from the stalk through a header that looks similar to a cotton stripper. While Bobbi and Caleb each made a round in the cab, I made my way down turnrows photographing and videoing the process.

Following lunch at the Jackson's headquarters near Seminole, we traveled to one of their peanut fields where we watched the next phase of peanut harvest -- thrashing. After Bobbi and Caleb rode the combine, we got to make a quick stop at another of the Jackson's pepper fields. This time, though small, these peppers packed a punch. You could actually smell the heat or the spice in the field. These peppers will be used for medicinal purposes.

Our final destination was Trico Peanut—Texas's first and only farm-to-fork peanut facility. It not only serves as a buying point for the region's producers, where the peanuts are cleaned, sorted, shelled and shipped, but this year it expanded into roasting, packaging and selling them as well. Some are salted, others are flavored. Be on the lookout for Texas Roasting peanuts in a store near you.

What a great day watching Robbie and Otis tell agriculture's story through Scotty, Chase, the Jacksons and the folks at Trico. Not only did Bobbi and Caleb get to hear firsthand the ups and downs and ins and outs of agriculture, but they also experienced a glimpse of it.

As farm bill discussions are underway, we can't miss an opportunity to invite, inform and experience what it is we do. Reading about it and analyzing an infographic are one thing. Getting your boots dirty is another.

I guess you could say it's campaign season for agriculture. Invite someone to experience what it is we do. This is a fight we can't afford to lose.  

About the Author(s)

Shelley E. Huguley

Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

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