Dryland cotton in Floyd County (Photo FCR)
DALLAS, TX – The first cotton planting intentions survey of 2023 has U.S. acreage tumbling 17 percent from last year based on lower prices received by farmers and a continuation of elevated production costs.
The National Cotton Council’s 42nd Annual Early Season Planting Intentions Survey projects a harvest later this year at under nine million acres (8.8 million) and production of 15.7 million bales, which despite an ongoing drought across the largest growing region, would be nearly two million more bales than in 2022.
Acreage is expected to decline across the entire country, with a 9.5 percent decline in the Southeast; 16.2 percent in the Mid-South; 19.6 percent in the Southwest; and a 33.7 percent decline in the West – amounting to the smallest crop in Arizona and California on record.
One interesting trend is the increase in extra long staple (ELS) or pima-planted cotton, with a slight increase nationally in acres as production moves east from California to Arizona (up 15.9 percent), New Mexico (up 12 percent) and Texas (up 18.2 percent).
With the price ratios of cotton to corn and soybeans at their lowest level since planting the 2009 crop, farmers are expected to plant more of those crops, along with an increase in sorghum and wheat acres in 2023.
