TIFTON, Ga.— For many first time attendees on the 22nd annual Georgia Peanut Tour the event provided them with an opportunity to actually walk through a peanut field and see peanuts plowed up with a digger at harvest. The tour kicked off earlier this week and highlighted a cross section of the peanut industry from field stops, research centers and shelling plants. The tour was held September 16-18, 2008 in the South Central area of Georgia with stops in Crisp, Dodge, Pulaski, Dooly, Tift, Sumter, Macon, Lee, Terrell and Dougherty counties.

“I had no clue all of the steps in the process before the company I work for obtains the peanuts for processing,” says Emily Rudolph, product developer for Kraft Foods. “I have never seen a peanut in the ground. I have thoroughly enjoyed the tour and learning about all the production issues farmers’ deal with throughout the growing season.”

The tour began with an early bird Hot Topics Seminar on Tuesday, Sept. 16 in Cordele, Ga. The seminar provided attendees with an update on the farm bill, the 2008 peanut crop, peanut biotechnology and molecular breeding, the USAID Peanut Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) program, health-promoting components in peanut products, and development of peanut based products through the University of Georgia Department Of Food Science.

One highlight of the seminar featured Dr. Patricia Wolff, clinical professor of pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine and head of Med & Food for Kids (MFK), as she discussed a life saving peanut butter medicine for malnourished children in Haiti. The MFK is saving lives of toddlers in Haiti with an innovative mixture of peanuts, powdered milk, sugar, oil, vitamins and minerals. This product is called Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) and needs no cooking or preparation time. The best part of this product is that toddlers can eat RUTF at home. In fact the product leads to recovery rates that often exceed 85 percent. The RUTF product is produced right in Haiti under the brand name, Medika Mamba (Haitian Creole for “Peanut Butter Medicine”). Since 2003, MFK has offered the hope of recovery to thousands of malnourished children.

The Georgia Peanut Tour kicked off Wednesday morning, September 17 with farm visits at Chris Martin’s farm in Dodge County and Dawson Brothers Farm in Pulaski County. Additional tour stops on Wednesday included Advanced Trailers in Vienna, Ga., where attendees toured the plant which makes semi trailers for hauling peanuts and learned more about Blueline dryers made by Cook Industrial Electric. The tour concluded on Wednesday with stops in Tifton, Ga., at a shelling plant, Tifton Quality Peanuts, and a visit to the National Peanut Museum and the Agrirama.

The tour started right back up on Thursday with a tour of Jimmy Carter’s boyhood home and a special visit from the 39th President Jimmy Carter. Additional tour stops on Thursday included research at the University of Georgia Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center, field visits at Chase Farms in Oglethorpe, Ga., McCleskey Mills and the National Peanut Research Lab in Dawson, Ga.

The Georgia Peanut Tour is coordinated by the Georgia Peanut Commission, the University of Georgia Tifton and Griffin Campus, Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center in Plains, Attapulgus Research and Education Center and the USDA ARS National Peanut Research Laboratory in Dawson, Ga.

This year a blog was created which highlights all tour stops throughout the week. The blog can be viewed online at www.gapeanuts.com.