Months after the Salmonella outbreak linked to The Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, GA, the stigma on peanuts seems to have subsided, but farmers are facing more pressing problems for the 2009 growing season.

Farming is a hgh risk business any way you look at it, but farming is a high risk business any way you look at it, but farmers must be prepared to take the good with the bad, in order to continue growing.

"All the crops we grow for the market, cotton, corn and peanuts are down about 30% from what they were this time last year, and it's just a depressed economy." according to wiregrass farmer Thomas Kirkland.

Willie Durr of the Houston County Extension office said, "if those contracts are lower, substantially lower, we'll say 350 then their kind of
in a hole."

While the stigma of the Salmonella outbreak has hargly subsided, contracts are becoming harder to get because of a peanut surplus.

"You take the crop we had last year, all that has not been totally diminished, and even from previous years, you have a good number of warehouses and storage facilities that have a lot of peanuts" said Durr.

Farmers are also having a hard time banking on other types of crops because their demands are lower also. Last year corn was valuable to produce because of the high demand for Ethanol, an alternative and cheaper fuel source. With gas prices lower this year, the demand for corn is down.

And of course we cannot forget the weather.

Kirkland said, "we like to have rainfall but when we have too much at one time like we did two weeks ago, that caused the erosion in the fields, that set us back on our field preparation by about two weeks from where we usually are at this time."

And repairing fields can get very expensive.

"This year we're just trying to keep our losses to a minimum, and pray that we'll have a good crop and go again next year." said Kirkland.

In addition to reducing crop sizes, many farmers are planting different products like cotton and soybeans, because each require rain at different times during the growing season.

Wile farmers are hoping to get federal assistance soon, they must go ahead with their planting now, preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.