After salmonella scare, Blakely rallies for its livelihood

BLAKELY — Mike Newberry climbs into his silver GMC pickup, driving west down Highway 62 a familiar 22 miles from his farm. Just before entering town, he passes the shuttered plant belonging to Peanut Corporation of America.

Once, it filled his heart with pride.

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ELISSA EUBANKS / eeubanks@ajc.com

Collin Wilson, 6, stands in costume with his parents (from left) Angie and Bruce Wilson.

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• For all the latest developments on the peanut crisis and the salmonella outbreak, with an updated list of recalled items, plus background on the scare, go to the AJC's special report: ajc.com/peanuts.

Today, he simply feels disillusioned.

The plant is the reason Newberry is in Blakely this Saturday morning. He is eager to do his share at a festival to restore the image of a crop that is lifeblood in southwest Georgia.

When a deadly salmonella outbreak spread across the nation, Peanut Corp., the manufacturer of the tainted products, brought Blakely down faster than a tornado, uprooting the lives of plant employees and farmers like Newberry.

Nine deaths were linked to peanut-related salmonella. Another 700 people were sickened. Almost 3,000 products were recalled.

Nervous Americans stopped eating a diet staple. Peanut butter sales plummeted.

An iconic industry in Georgia was in trouble.

Warehouses brimming with last fall’s bumper crop of peanuts stayed full. Shellers, who buy from growers, didn’t sign new contracts.

Newberry arrives at the courthouse square and joins thousands attending the “Peanut Proud” festival. The event is little Blakely’s way of reminding America of what the inscription on its famous peanut monument proudly proclaims: Eat peanuts. They are good for your health. And essential for our pocketbooks.

Newberry, 51, a fourth-generation Early County peanut farmer, says this is the worst crisis he has known. His future depends on how well Blakely, the county seat, can remake its own tainted image — and that of its biggest crop.

“We had something bad happen to us,” Newberry says. “We’re suffering because people have cut back on peanut consumption. We need to put a good foot forward.”

Newberry knows a lot of the people milling about the square.

“Hey,” he says. “Good to see you.”

So many lives here are inextricably linked to peanuts — growers, shellers, processers, truckers. Many are wearing t-shirts that say “Peanut ProudÖand spreading the word.”

The festival is uplifting for Newberry after a saturation of negative news about Peanut Corp. and Blakely. During the height of the salmonella scandal, residents felt ambushed. It wasn’t fair, they thought, that their town’s name had suddenly become synonymous with sickness.

“Stewart Parnell does not even live here,” says Ben Houston about the owner of Peanut Corp., who makes his home in Lynchburg, Va.

Houston, 63, bites into a grilled PB&J, the warm, creamy stuff oozing from two slabs of white bread.

“It’s just a shame that one person could do this to the industry,” he says. “Blakely got a bad rap.”

Houston, a food technologist who works as a consultant to local peanut firms, wants to help get his community back on track.

“This is the peanut capital of the world. We’re very proud.”

Several companies show off their products at booths lining the square. Roasted peanuts, boiled peanuts, raw peanuts, peanut butter.

The Peanut Institute touts how heart healthy the legume is.

“Pot roast is a comfort food. But try carrying that around in your pocket,” says one slogan.

Others are displaying farm equipment or distributing factoids about peanut crops.

All with the hope that Americans will get past their peanut fears.

Once regarded as food for the South’s poor, the peanut rapidly grew in popularity after the Civil War to become an ingredient in thousands of products. Georgia, the nation’s top producer, accounts for 41 percent of the national crop.

Early County’s dirt - light sandy loam and a heavy moisture-retaining clay underlay - is perfect for peanuts. About 26,000 county acres are devoted to legume, by far the largest crop in the area.

It’s plain to see how the peanut defines life here.

“It’s everything,” says Brian Cresswell, county extension coordinator. “Now peanuts are not worth anything.”

In 2008, Georgia farmers, helped by timely rainfall, yielded their second largest peanut crop ever. Cresswell says farmers earned $450 to $500 a ton. But with warehouses fully stocked and a tanking global economy, prices began to fall. Luxury items like roasted peanuts stopped selling. Then, as Newberry points out, came the “salmonella dagger.”

Prices fell to $355 a ton. Newberry will have to sell two tons just to break even.

“It’s not a pretty year,” he says.

He loves the smell of the earth and working under the sun. As long as he can remember, he wanted to be a farmer. Just like his daddy, Ike, 78, who still helps his son with the family farm.

But Newberry is rethinking what to plant this spring. He usually uses a third of his 300 acres to put peanuts in the ground every May. But who will buy them?

In a normal year, Newberry pockets contracts before planting begins. But March is drawing to a close and he has none. Cresswell says he doesn’t know of a single peanut contract in 2009.

Sally Wells, 49, spokeswoman for Birdsong Peanuts, one of America’s largest shellers, says the current crisis is by far the worst she’s seen in her 30 years in the industry.

About a hundred other Birdsong employees are on hand to help with the Blakely peanutfest. LeaJean Manry, 59, says that when Peanut Corps. recalled its products, workers at Birdsong’s Blakely plant agreed to eat PB&J sandwiches for lunch at least once a week to show solidarity with the industry.

From that one small act grew the idea of a community festival paying homage to the peanut. Manry’s son, Ryan Johnson, 33, drove up from Tallahassee with his wife and 11-month son to support the community in which he was raised.

“People are looking to pick themselves up,” Johnson says, taking a photo of baby Nolan in front of the peanut monument. “It’s a good family town.”

Speaker after speaker hails the resilience of Blakely. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and U.S. Rep Sanford Bishop are among them. So is the mayor of Blakely, Ric Hall, who blames the greed of one company for his town getting a bad name. But he’s optimistic that Americans will return to their favorite nut.

The irony is that in the height of a recession, peanut butter should have been an extremely popular food — high protein, low price.

Tyron Spearman, chairman of the National Peanut Buying Points Association and a coordinator of the Blakely festival, says peanut butter sales have dropped by as much as 7 percent. Other national estimates are as high as 13 percent.

All because of one company.

A mouse that brought down an elephant.

Newberry never imagined such a tragedy in his own industry, in his own county.

But from all things bad comes something good, he says. Like better food manufacturing practices — and grassroots community events.

“Sometimes we need these things to pick us up,” he says, standing under a cloudless sky. John Mellencamp’s music is blaring: “Yeah, I can be myself here in this small townÖ”

For Newberry, it’s a much-needed good feeling.