October 15, 2024 (Alexandria, Va.)—The American Peanut Council today launched the 2024 crop enrollment for the Sustainable U.S. peanuts Initiative. In its fourth year, the initiative is supporting America’s peanut industry with metrics on the most efficient use of production resources and encouraging farm operation sustainability practices that will help meet customer expectations, lead to increased demand for peanuts and set the stage for long-term economic viability.
Through April 2025, peanut growers can enroll or update their information from previous crop years at https://sustainableuspeanuts.org/. An informational grower toolkit can be accessed here.
“For peanut growers to be productive and profitable, the industry will need to increase demand for peanuts, and in our current market one of the biggest drivers for demand is quickly becoming sustainability,” said American Peanut Council President and CEO Richard Owen. “Because consumers are demanding sustainable food production practices, manufacturers, retailers and our international trading partners have the same expectations. To be competitive, both domestically and internationally, the industry will need to prove and document peanut sustainability, which is the goal of the initiative.”
Sustainable U.S. Peanuts is supported by the peanut-industry and administered by the American Peanut Council. It is the first of its kind, industry led and industry fed, peanut sustainability initiative. Relying on growers to input their verifiable sustainability practices, the initiative aggregates sustainability data from across the entire peanut industry. It is creating transparency that will serve the entire supply chain- from the people who love to grow peanuts, to the people who love to eat them.
“The peanut industry has an incredible and evolving sustainability story to tell and the industry-supported Sustainable U.S. Peanuts Initiative is helping growers be part of the narrative,” said Owen.