https://jimmycarter.info/peanuts/
Carter holding peanuts
Carter holding peanuts for campaign press photo in 1966.
The popularity of and curiosity about the peanut grew significantly during the successful 1976 presidential campaign that put Jimmy Carter in the White House. The image of the peanut in caricature was seen around the world as a symbol of not only a president, but also the towns of Plains. Born in 1924, James Earl Carter, Jr. grew up on his parents’ 360-acre farm. In Carter’s early years, his father began growing peanuts, a crop that made a great impact on his life. His family first raised the small Spanish peanuts, which were used as salted nuts, in candy bars, and some varieties for hog feed. At the age of five, Carter sold boiled peanuts on the streets of Plains.
When Jimmy was growing up on the farm, three acres of land produced a ton of peanuts, generating about sixty dollars in income, which for the time was excellent return. During harvesting season, every able bodied person was needed for the peanut harvest. Of this experience, Carter later wrote:
“The key to peanut harvest was the threshing machine, which we called a ‘picker’ because is picked the nuts from the vines. It was most often driven by a flat belt from the rear axle or wheel of a truck, and the dried stacks were hauled to it on wooden sleds, each pulled by a mule. The nuts were collected in a basket or washtub and dumped into a pickup truck or wagon; the nutritious dried vines were baled for animal feed. This was a big and important operation, and involved all the men on the place.”
When Earl Carter died in 1953, his son, Jimmy, resigned from his career in the U.S. Navy to return to Plains to manage his father’s farm supply business and several hundred acres of land. Jimmy later decided that instead of just buying and reselling certified seed as his father had done in his business, it would be more profitable if he started growing the peanut seed himself. The increased income enabled him to expand the warehouse operation. Carter’s Warehouse not only included sale of certified seed peanuts, but it also included the service of supplying liquid nitrogen, bulk fertilizer and lime. The warehouse also bought corn, provided custom grinding and mixing, and ginned cotton. Fire and casualty insurance were also available through the Carter agri-business.
While he serves as president, Jimmy Carter placed the family farm supply business into the protection of a blind trust before he left for Washington, D.C. in 1977. This trust allowed for a law firm in Atlanta to take full administration of the farm supply business during his years in the White House. The carters felt that relinquishing the business to someone else’s care would separate them from these affairs and avoid the possibility of their financial holdings resembling any conflict of interest while President Carter was in office.
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