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Decatur County farmer, Parker Heard recently won the District II UGA Peanut Achievement Club award. With 700-plus acres in peanuts, Parker Heard produced 6,292 pounds of peanuts per acre in 2019.

High peanut production seems to run in the family and Parker is carrying on the tradition of his father, Glenn and grandfather, R.G. Mr. Glenn Heard has won the State Peanut Achievement Club award three times and Mr. R.G. Heard won the award twice.

“It takes a tremendous amount of hard work to make these peanut yields per field, especially for an entire farm. This just goes to show the amount time, energy, passion, and devotion to agriculture that you a producer like Parker puts into his farming operation,” stated UGA Cooperative Extension Agent, Brian Hayes. Growing up on farm, Parker knew that cultivating the soil was what he wanted to do with his life. After graduating from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in 2013, Parker returned to Decatur County to begin farming alongside his father, but it wasn’t long before he began branching out on his own. Parker now farms about 1900 acres and grows not only peanuts, but also cotton, field corn and sweet corn.

Typically award winners are highlighted by the University of Georgia Peanut Team at the Georgia Peanut Achievement Club meeting each summer, but due to the current pandemic the event was canceled.

Georgia is the top producer of peanuts in the United States with Georgia farmers providing 45% of the U.S. peanut crop each year. This is an economic value of over $600 million.