Peanut oil

Cultivation & yield

The main countries of cultivation and also the main exporters of peanuts are the USA, Argentina, Sudan, Senegal and Brazil. The exports of these five countries together account for more than 70% of total world peanut exports. Two major producers of peanuts are China and India. However, these two countries use their peanut production mainly to meet domestic demand and play a minor role in exports. The main peanut importing countries are the European Union, Canada and Japan.

For harvesting, the entire plant is removed from the ground. The fruits are removed from the root ball and cleaned. The fruit is dried for 2-4 weeks to reduce the water content from 40% to 5% to 7%. In warm countries this is done by air drying outdoors. After drying, the nuts are threshed or crushed and, if necessary, peeled before they are pressed into peanut oil. The seeds contain about 45 % oil.

The wild form of peanuts, which was already domesticated in the Andes of Colombia around 3000-2000 BC, probably originates from Brazil and was first described in 1547 by the Spanish Oviedo. In the 16th century it reached Africa with the slave trade. It was then exported to India, the Philippines and China. Only in the 19th century the peanut gained importance in Europe. Its original home is South America. The Incas living there gave their dead people peanuts to their graves, probably so that they had something to eat in the afterlife. The natives gave the peanut the name "tlacacáhuatl" (Nahuatl means "cocoa bean of the earth"). This is still the origin of the French and Spanish names for peanuts, cacahuète and cacahuete.