Tortellini with Creamy Peanut Sauce

2 - 9 oz. Buitoni Spinach Cheese Tortellini
1 - 12 oz. can evaporated milk
¼ cup creamy peanut butter
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup Finely shredded Italian Blend Cheese (mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, romano, fontina, and Asiago)
1 Tbsp. all purpose flour
½ of an 8 oz. jar of Mezzetta sun-ripened, dried tomatoes
Cocktail peanuts to chop for garnishing
Peanut oil

On a cutting board liner chop a handful of cocktail peanuts to use as a garnish and put them in a dish.

On the same liner take half of the jar of tomatoes and dice them up. Put the tomatoes in a large glass mixing bowl.

Cook the tortellini according to directions.

While the pasta is cooking begin your sauce.

Over low heat in a sauce pan, with a wire whisk blend the evaporated milk, the peanut butter, the Italian seasoning, and the salt until blended. Sprinkle in the flour gently and slowly as you continue to whisk the sauce. Continue whisking while adding the Italian blend cheese and whisk until the cheese is melted and fully mixed in to make a creamy sauce.

When the pasta is done drain it and put it in the bowl with the tomatoes and toss it all together. Then pour the sauce in the bowl and continue to toss until everything is mixed together.

Serve in a bowl and garnish with the chopped peanuts and a sprinkling of the shredded Italian cheese.

Rainfall Deficit

Well now, yesterday was the first day since Halloween that the mercury got to 80 degrees.

We are also about three inches below normal on rainfall for 2010.

Corn is certainly having a bit of a time getting up to a stand, the sub-surface moisture is still adequate, some spots are even boggy, there is cotton still being picked from last year's crop, and to say that the situation is a bit odd is an understatement.

I heard a climatologist last week explain this as a part of the El Nino cooling in the Pacific.

On another note cotton prices seem to be poised to rise if there is no major world economic failure. This from a cotton market expert who said stocks are low and the only thing that can cause a problem is the general economy having a major downturn.

I would say this could make for a very interesting peanut market at the end of 2010.

President Adams' Budget

I along with about 100 percent of the folks in Georgia Agriculture were appalled by the budget cuts proposed for the University of Georgia. Essentially a fourth of the cuts came, disproportionately, out of the College of Agriculture.

The biggest uprising came from his suggestion to do away with 4-H and sell the camps at Rock Eagle and Jekyll Island. That is expected when you look at the number of children currently in the 4-H program and also the fact that there are many more of us who are products of 4-H.

I hope we will not lose sight of the other cuts he proposed. Eliminating half of the County Extension offices in the state would have far reaching impact and it would not be good. Margins on our farms today are as small as they have been in decades. Farmers are struggling to meet their cash flow and seldom are we able to build any equity...in fact many farmers find themselves in the unfortunate situation of farming up their equity.

Farmers need to have ready access to the results of research which will help them find opportunities to earn a profit. The County Agent is the one who can get them this information. To eliminate County Agents creates other hardships within the system. Specialists who provide the information to the County Agents and do applied research will become nothing more than area agents and they will not have the time to do the applied research which proves core research and its use on the farm. Also, last year the Peanut Commission funded local research plots with a dozen county agents in Georgia. This allows farmers to see various research trials and the results locally. I hope you get the picture on why eliminating half the County Agents in this state is a bad idea.

Let's then shift to the closing of critical research stations. Let me use Atapulgus as an example. The research station at Atapulgus has a long and sordid history. Researchers have done everything they can wrong there to build up disease, weed, nematode, and other pest pressures. Sounds terrible doesn't it? We should close it and sell it, Right???

Absolutely not! We need that facility to test the results of research findings, to do variety trials of new varieties so we can understand how they respond under the worst of conditions. Growing peanuts in a greenhouse can be pretty simple once you learn the technique. Growing peanuts with everything Mother Nature can throw at you like at Atapulgus is where the rubber hits the road.

I know we seem to be being used as a pawn in a chess game between the UGA and the Legislature but frankly agriculture in Georgia is way to important to be playing games with.

I hope this fact is not lost on the leaders of this state.

Winter Meeting Season

We have been in the midst of Winter Meeting Season so I have done a pretty poor job of updating my post.

March is pretty full yet. I have five work days in which to schedule anything and know I have at least one meeting to schedule yet in the month.

Next Sunday we will be at the Atlanta Motor Speedway doing a promotion again this year. Last year we had a great day at the race and this year we are ready for a repeat.

Peanut farmers and their families can get a discounted ticket. Contact the Peanut Commission for the information you need to do this.

Georgia Peanut Farm Show

Thursday we will have the annual Georgia Peanut Farm Show at the Civic Center in Albany. This is an educational event where farmers can learn about and even see what is new in producing peanuts.

We have an exhibit floor full and will even provide lunch for our farmers.

I love working with farmers. They feed, house, and clothe us. What a noble occupation.

It is going to rain Thursday so I look forward to seeing all of our farmers there.

It's Cold Outside

This sort of reminds me of those Winters we had years ago where there was ice on the water trough.

It has been a long time since we have had sustained cold like this. You can pretty much bet it has killed some bugs and weeds this year. I hope this is the start of a perfect growing season. I want just one of those before I retire.

There is sure a lot of uncertainty right now. The Cotton Market is seeming to trend stronger and an increase of a million acres, experts say would not glut the market given the current carry-in numbers.

Farmers are telling me that $425 on peanuts will tend to cause plantings to be pretty conservative, probably not much different than last year. If cotton, corn and bean prices are even stronger then we could actually see a decline in acres of peanuts from last year.

I think the situation is even more tenuous in some of the other states. Growers in Texas are telling me they can't keep doing what they have been doing because they are going broke. From the numbers I am seeing off of the representative farms I don't think these farmers are lying to me. I wish some folks in the industry would take a look at what the representative farms are showing right now; Spend time, understand farm cost structures, and learn from the numbers what is going on out on the farm.

Well we will know something pretty soon because farmers are going to have to line up financing and make their cropping decisions. They may have some flexibility but in late February when corn planting starts in the southern tier decisions will soon become etched in stone.

What a year...what a decade

It is hard to believe that this is the last day of the first decade of the 2000's. It seems like only yesterday that folks debated when the Millennium actually started. Remember the fear of computers not understanding the year 2000. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter were all a mystery.

Fast forward to 2009. It was a difficult weather year for farmers. Our normal rainfall is about 50 inches in a year and 2009 graced us with over 80 inches of rain and a lot of that was at harvest time. There is still cotton in the fields and the quality and yield is dropping.

Peanut yields were good in most areas but as a farmer told me last week he and his neighbors won't plant peanuts at $425 because there is no money in them. When he figured his taxes he said he paid to grow peanuts. Strangely, he assured me he knows a $525 peanut would cause us to bust the market again.

One bright spot is the new varieties we have. Yields have increased noticeably during the decade of the zeros. I had one farmer tell me he never thought he could have a farm average of 5500 pounds.

I have to hope that the decade of the 10's will take us to yields over three tons and maybe even 7000 pounds for our best producers. The investment growers have made through their checkoff dollars in the breeding programs are certainly paying off.

Ten years ago auto steer tractors were a mere vision. Now they are common place and we may find them even more useful as we look to spraying fungicides at night.

Another bright spot is consumption. Consumption of peanut butter, which is the foundation of our market, has continued to be strong.

It is truly my wish for my farmers that we can have a prosperous year and decade. I am saddened to hear really good farmers talk about the economic hardships they are facing. Remember that farmers feed the world.

God Bless!