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Texas Agriculture Archive

March 1, 2002

Cotton acreage:
Texas bucks downward trend

By Lana Robinson
Field Editor

While U.S. cotton plantings are projected to decline in 2002, Texas seems to be bucking the national trend with overall acreage virtually unchanged from last year.

According to the National Cotton Council's 19th Annual Early Season Planting Intentions Survey, U.S. cotton producers are expected to plant 14.74 million acres of cotton this spring, down 6.7 percent from 2001. Cottonseed production for 2002 is projected to 6.5 million tons, down from 7.6 million tons the previous year. The NCC survey was mailed in late December of 2001 to approximately one-third of the cotton producers across the U.S. Surveys had to be returned by late-January in order to be included in the results.

In addition to unpredictable weather in the coming months, which will largely determine cotton plantings, banks and insurance are increasingly cautious in extending credit and writing coverage for farmers. Cotton farmers barely broke even in 2001, causing banks to question the wisdom of lending on a crop that is worth 40 percent less than it was last year. Other factors for lower acres across the nation include uncertainty over the farm bill and the fact that some producers are exiting farming.

Dr. Carl Anderson, professor and Extension economist said, "America's cotton farmers are suffering from an excess of cotton and a weak demand in foreign markets. Prices are extremely low and the amount of carry-over from last year is more than twice a reasonable amount. We have a six month carry-over supply right now when we should have a little less than three months. Despite these adversities, farmers are still planning on planting cotton rather than other commodities. Even with the low prices, there is still not enough of an economic incentive to shift acreage to other crops."

Valley farmers face water crisis

John Norman, Extension IPM (Integrated Pest Management) agent for Hidalgo, Cameron, and Willacy counties, agreed.

"Prices are so low for corn and sorghum crops, farmers don't really have a choice. And I also think the government program on cotton is better than the other two," said Norman.

Lack of water remains a "heartbreaking" issue in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, leaving farmers fewer options still.

"I suspect we will plant about the same amount of cotton as last year, which was 215,000 acres," Norman commented. "It could go a little higher, if there's a reshuffling of cotton prices. We're seeing less and less irrigated cotton, since there is less water to go around. They're saving it for sugarcane because the money's there. We actually dropped by about 50,000 acres in 2001, so it's possible we could still lose a little cotton acreage."

Cotton planting officially began Feb. 1 and runs through the end of March in the LRGV, but very little cotton had been planted there as recently as Feb. 20, according to Norman.

Coastal Bend acres slightly off

On Feb. 20, Nueces County Extension Agent Harvey Buehring reported that a little cotton had actually gone in the ground the previous week. He said some farmers were running a couple of planters of grain and one of cotton. As for cotton planting intentions, Buehring sees expansions tapering off.

"I think we are seeing a plateauing and perhaps a little scaling back, largely due to a lackluster market and the fact that we had a pretty significant acreage growth during the last three years," said Buehring, noting that cotton acreage climbed from 96,000 acres in 1999 to 140,000 by 2001. "I'm sensing that some of that might be at the request of lenders as far as borrowing limits. Prices have not given farmers any incentive for additional expansion. Also, it's just good prudent agronomic sense to rotate plantings, and many of our farmers are at a 50/50 mix. I think we may be rolling back acreage to possibly in the 130,000 range."

Farm bill uncertainty will have more impact next year than 2002, Buehring suggested.

"Basically, our guys had to commit back in the fall, when it looked like the Senate wasn't moving on it. They've been through this so many times before. In South Texas, producers figure they just have to go with what they think's best and unless there's some indication from their banker or the FSA office that might make them reconsider, they just go with what they have planned. But since that Senate bill has come out, the concerns right now are on the part of ag lenders," he explained. "That bill's not going to be very friendly to the typical, large-scale farming operations in Texas because of the payment entity limit. Next year's where the soul searching is going to come in. A lot depends on what comes out of the conference committee. One thing that might happen is the more tenured farmers—the silver-haired ones trying to bring in family members in farming operations and yet have economies of scale, and pooling equipment and operating as several entities on several parcels of land operating out of one central headquarters—may decide it's time to turn it over to the younger family member. Unless the congressmen prevail over the senators in the farm program, that may happen with even some of the smaller operations, because of the entity rules."

Plains production static

Brant Baugh, Extension entomologist in Lubbock, said from comments made at a Texas Pest Management Association meeting in February, he surmised that acreage may go up slightly in the Upper Coastal Bend and down in the Southern Blacklands and north of Plainview.

"Producers are planting their really good irrigated land in cotton and putting marginal land in wheat up north of Plainview," he said, "but from Lubbock south, its going to stay in cotton."

Lubbock County, which is part of the zone that produces some 3.5 million acres of cotton, harvested 188,529 acres of cotton in 2001. Baugh said 8,000 acres of cotton were hailed out. An additional 54,811 acres were listed as "missing" in a survey put together by the county's ag committee, made up of federal and state farm agency officials and representatives of major crop insurance companies. The committee's projection for harvested acres in 2002 is 235,340. Of that, they suggest that 3 percent won't get harvested. "If you total up the harvested acres, the hailed out acres and missing acres, that's what you come up with, so our acreage is going to be about the same as last year," Baugh predicted. "We lost some cotton acreage to sunflowers last year. There were 10,149 acres harvested in 2001, but only 5,000 acres of sunflower intentions in 2002. The crop burned up last year and the farmers didn't make any money..."