For the Belch family – husband Mike, wife Cindy and son Brandon – efficiency in peanut production boils down to relying on precision agriculture.

As Brandon sees it, relying on the science behind precision agriculture is the only way to farm these days.

 “I don’t know how you can farm without the new technology. The word ‘precision’ means you don’t second guess,” Brandon says. Adds father Mike, “You’re not over doing anything, you’re not under doing anything — it’s good science, another way of taking care of the land.”

The Belch family farms 1,400 to 1,500 acres in Northampton County, N.C. Their dedication to efficiency and land stewardship has garnered them the 2016 Farm Press Peanut Efficiency Award for the Upper Southeast. The family planted 140 acres of the peanut variety Bailey this year. They also are growing 500 acres of cotton with the rest of the land in corn, wheat and soybeans.