With a 19-percent spurt in production, peanut growers are harvesting the second-largest crop ever and “threatening to hand American taxpayers a near $2 billion bailout bill over the next three years and leaving the government with a big chunk of the crop on its books,” reports Reuters. Market prices for peanuts are running at seven-year lows. Some experts say the situation is the result of low prices for competing crops such as cotton and corn and federal crop subsidy rates that are more attractive for peanuts. In writing the 2014 farm law, Congress set the support price for peanuts near the long-run average market price. With the market in a slump, the government is forecast to pay millions of dollars to growers, and if prices stay low, growers can forfeit the crop to the USDA rather than repay price-support loans, says Reuters.