The original "quota" system went back to the 1930's. Peanuts are high in protein, a very valuable food crop. Farms were being lost to the boll weevil in cotton, droughts, and erosion.

To "prop up" farming, the quota system was established in efforts to help farmers grow a crop that would be stable and profitable to the grower, while providing an abundant reliable food supply to the American people.

Originally, the quota was in acres, and tied to the farm serial number. That continued through 1981. At that time, as I remember, "quota acres" of peanuts sold for around $500 to the grower, and were the only peanuts shellers and processors could use for domestic edible use. You had to have a quota to grow them, period.

In 1982, the quota system went to a pound system. A farm's quota production history is what established the quota pounds. You decided how many acres you wanted to plant, and only those quota pounds when to domestic edible production.

Anybody that wanted to grow peanuts now could, however, only the quota pounds were "supported" at the $500+ price. "Additional" or non-quota peanuts were supported at $148 per ton. Quota pound amounts and prices were set by the agriculture secretary. Some years, you may have seen your 200,000 pound quota reduced to 194,000, for example.

Farmers would rent the quota from landowners who owned it, and rent the land as well. Quota pounds rented for about $0.10 most years.

Sometimes a sheller would get a good export contract with somebody, and were able to offer some good "additional" contracts  at $300 or so. The non-contracted additionals would sell for about $175, and usually went to oil.

In 2002, they got rid of the quota system. The Feds bought out growers poundage. Peanuts now have a "base" poundage. The base went to the producers who had been growing them. He was free, one time only, to place those pounds on whatever farm he chose to. This is what your family was paid for.

In 1997, for the first time, landowners could actually "rent" their quota across county lines. That is when west Texas started seeing its production grow. A lot of production shifted from SE Texas (maybe Oklahoma?) to out there. With that history, a lot of farmers out there now have a "base". There is now a decent amount of infrastructure there as well.

The base support now is more like the approximate world wide aveage price of peanuts, about $450 per ton, I think. 

Don't take all my numbers as being gospel here. I have never farmed peanuts in my life, but I have worked with peanut farmers all my life, and deal with the production of them mostly, while keeping an eye on the economics.