Title: The Peanut Shortage | Pages
Headings: The Peanut Shortage
The Peanut Shortage
Content: They’ve also made their way to Antarctica and the Arctic. Apparently back at the turn of 20th century, way before we had compact energy bars, peanuts were the go-to expedition food as they were packed with fats, calories, protein and didn’t need to be cooked before eating. They’ve been a deciding factor in life or death situations for many early expeditions. Cotton and drought conditions
Alright, enough with these tasty tidbits of random information though—where have all the peanuts gone?! The current peanut shortage is being attributed to two main contributing factors. The first being the high price of cotton and the second is the recent drought conditions in the Southeast and Southwest of the U.S. You might be saying to yourself, “What does the price of cotton have to do with the lack of peanuts for my peanut butter?” The plain and simple answer is that the price of cotton this last growing season was almost double that of its highest record price in the last 30 years and this has caused many farmers who traditionally grow peanuts to transition to growing cotton. The price of cotton has jumped so drastically partially due to flooding in India, China and Pakistan last year, which are traditionally major cotton producers. Additionally, inventories of cotton have been low due to the recession and China’s growing demand for cotton. All of these factors contribute to the initial rise in the price of cotton.