ALBANY, Ga. (AP) – Louie Grimes still remembers his first peanut crop in 1954, which was ruined by a drought.

He’ll remember his 50th peanut crop, harvested last fall, as the most expensive he’s ever grown.

Grimes and other south Georgia peanut farmers complained about soaring prices for fuel, fertilizer and chemicals at the Georgia Peanut Commission’s annual meeting Thursday. They also expressed concern about maintaining the safety net provided by their government commodity program in the next farm bill.

“We are in the hardest squeeze we’ve been in since I’ve been in the farming business,” said the 69-year-old Grimes.

Grimes said the price he paid for diesel fuel and fertilizer on his Colquitt farm doubled last year and the price for pesticides and other chemicals rose significantly, yet the price he received for his peanuts didn’t increase proportionally.

“Farmers are discouraged,” he said. “You see a lot of sad faces.”

About 1,000 growers came to the meeting to listen to speeches and fantasize about shiny new tractors and peanut harvesting equipment.

During a round of speeches, Bob Redding, the commission’s Washington representative, said the last farm bill served peanut farmers pretty well, except for a glitch that has made U.S. peanuts too expensive on the world market.

Peanut farmers have been grumbling to no avail about the Agriculture Department’s “posted price,” which governs export prices, since the 2002 Farm Bill was passed.

The 2002 Farm Bill ended a Depression-era quota system that guaranteed some growers $610 per ton for peanuts and limited where the crop could be grown.

It was replaced by a program that allows peanuts to be grown anywhere and guarantees all growers $355 per ton.

Although domestic peanut consumption has climbed to an all-time high because of new products and better promotion, exports have dropped from about 500,000 tons a year in 2002 to between 200,000 and 300,000 tons because the price is set too high, said Don Koehler, the peanut commission’s executive director.

Redding said the peanut commodity program created by the 2002 Farm Bill had maintained an adequate safety net for growers and it’s important that the new farm bill take into account their higher production costs, brought on largely by soaring prices for fuel and other petroleum-based products, such as chemicals and fertilizers.

Congress will vote on a new farm bill in 2007.

“The peanut program has worked,” Redding said. “We made significant changes. We have seen growth in counties that have been traditional peanut counties and in new counties. We have to convince Congress, particularly urban policy-makers, that what was a safety net in ‘02 is not a safety net in ‘O7.”

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