The Hagstrom Report

Agriculture News As It Happens

Navigation

Cotton plantings projected to go down

U.S. cotton producers intend to plant 9.01 million acres of cotton this spring, down 26.8 percent from 2012, according to the National Cotton Council’s 30th Annual Early Season Planting Intentions Survey, which was released this weekend at the National Cotton Council meeting in Memphis.

Upland cotton intentions are 8.81 million acres, down 27.0 percent from 2012, while extra-long staple (ELS) intentions of 203,000 acres represent a 15.0 percent decline.

Assuming slightly above-average abandonment in the Southwest region due to the dry conditions and all other states set at historical averages, total upland and ELS harvested area would be 7.65 million acres, which is 15.2 percent below planted area and the crop would be 12.86 million bales compared with 2012’s total production of 17.01 million bales.

The NCC survey, mailed in mid-December 2012 to producers across the 17-state Cotton Belt, asked producers for the number of acres devoted to cotton and other crops in 2012 and the acres planned for the coming season. Survey responses were collected through mid-January.

NCC Vice President Gary Adams said farmers are responding to relative prices for cotton and competing crops. Respondents in the Southeast, he said, are shifting to corn and soybeans, with soybeans heavily favored.

In the Southwest, respondents planting less cotton said they intend to move those acres into grain sorghum, wheat and corn, in that order.

The survey indicated that some producers are planning to increase cotton, with some of those acres coming from grains but the larger reason underlying the increase appears to be weather. Growers unable to plant last year due to drought conditions are expecting to sow more acres in 2013.

In the West, growers are shifting to specialty crops, he said.