Writer: Kathleen Phillips (979) 845-2872, ka-phillips@tamu.edu
Contact: Dr. Carl Anderson (979) 845-8011, canderson@tamu.edu
COLLEGE STATION — Unrelenting hot, dry weather across the state continues to take its toll on Texas crops, slashing an estimated $500 million from cotton farmers and $1.8 billion from the economy, according to a Texas Agricultural Extension Service economist.
The estimated losses, which will climb even higher if sufficient rain doesn’t fall, have surpassed the 1996 levels when agriculture last felt the impact of severe drought, said Dr. Carl Anderson, Extension cotton marketing economist. Cotton farmers that year took a $359 million loss that translated into a $1.2 billion cut to the state’s overall economy.
Expected cotton losses this year have more than tripled in the two weeks since the Extension Service released its first drought impact for 1998, estimating the loss to cotton farmers then to be $157 million.
“We still have hopes that if temperatures were to cool and the rain was to move into the West Texas area, then cotton would have a chance, dryland in particular,” Anderson said. “But with another two weeks of the same hot, dry weather with high temperatures then the losses will be greater than we are estimating today.”
Last year, Texas cotton farmers harvested some 5.3 million bales valued at $1.8 billion at the farm and generating $6 billion in economic activity across the state. But, Anderson estimated, the number of bales expected to be harvested at this point may total only 3.3 million. He said the reduction of 2 million bales is severe.
“The loss will hit the rural regions the hardest,” he said.
Anderson’s figures come on the heels of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s cotton planting figures report released Tuesday. That report indicated that all cotton acreage planted in Texas totaled 5.4 million, about 125,000 acres less than was planted last year. Anderson noted that the reduced acreage mostly was in the Blacklands, Upper Coastal and Central growing regions.
“However, the greatest economic losses will be across the Texas South Plains and Rolling Plains regions,” Anderson said. “These regions include around 4 million acres — a little more than 1.5 million have some irrigation and 2.5 million are dryland.”
He said the current estimate is that 1.65 million of the dryland acres will not be harvested because of the extreme dry weather and high temperatures in May and June.
“Much of the lost acreage failed to even germinate, and some acreage that did was unable to survive,” Anderson said.
The value of the drought loss to farmers across the South and Rolling Plains is estimated at $343 million, he said, and the mostly local economic losses to businesses are placed at $929 million, for a total economic impact of $1.27 billion.
Central and southern cotton regions already have reached losses of $157 million to producers, or about 475,000 bales. The producers’ loss of income impacts total business activity by some $529 million.
According to the Texas Water Development Board, practically the entire state is experiencing a severe to extreme drought, with crop moisture deficits of at least 4 inches, and conditions are expected to continue at least through August.
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