By Clint Thompson
Georgia’s cotton acres are expected to drop to their lowest total in more than 30 years. That’s “alarming,” according to one industry expert.
“(The National Cotton Council) is talking about the lowest cotton acres since 1993 in Georgia; 864,000 was their prediction,” said Camp Hand, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension cotton agronomist. “There’s quite a few people who think it’ll go below a million. But we’ve just got to wait and see. It’s hard for me to tell, just because everybody is poor-mouthing cotton anyway. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.
“Of course, the price dropped (Tuesday) and the stock market is going down, too, with all of the talk about the tariffs and things like that. Those kinds of things are impacting the market in a negative way right this second. It doesn’t help the situation at all.”
Georgia growers are expected to reduce their acreage by 21.5%. It would represent Georgia’s lowest cotton acreage since 1993.
“We’ve been above a million planted acres every year since 1993, so it’s pretty alarming,” Hand said.
Switch to Peanuts
Hand said the December price for cotton was listed at 67 cents. The drastically low prices are likely to prompt most growers to switch to peanut acres this year which creates an even bigger problem.
“With that low of cotton acres and I’m assuming most of it is going to be replaced by peanuts, that’s bad for Georgia agriculture. You think of the longevity of, potentially, a million acres of peanuts, what if we have a really good year and make a 4,000-pound crop? There’s going to be a surplus of peanuts,” Hand said.
“Then what’s going to happen to the price next year? There’s not going to be any reason to do anything more than $450 a ton next year. Right now, it’s at $500 and it doesn’t have to be at $500 to be competitive with cotton.”