{"id":35307,"date":"2014-03-24T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=35307"},"modified":"2014-03-24T09:28:43","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T14:28:43","slug":"what-drought-cattle-and-crimea-have-to-do-with-texas-cotton-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/03\/24\/what-drought-cattle-and-crimea-have-to-do-with-texas-cotton-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"What Drought, Cattle and Crimea Have to Do With Texas Cotton Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_14592\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"The white fruit of the cotton plant is known as the boll. Texas has led the nation in cotton production for over a century.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/07\/1464287910_d456b93ff4.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14592\" alt=\"The white fruit of the cotton plant is known as the boll. Texas has led the nation in cotton production for over a century.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/07\/1464287910_d456b93ff4-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/07\/1464287910_d456b93ff4-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/07\/1464287910_d456b93ff4.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Gary Nored \/ Flickr\/ Creative Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The white fruit of the cotton plant is known as the boll. Texas has led the nation in cotton production for over a century.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Every year Texas farmers are faced with a choice: should they focus on growing corn, cotton, or sorghum?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/soilcrop.tamu.edu\/staff\/morgan-gaylon\/\">Gaylon Morgan<\/a> has an\u00a0inkling\u00a0what kind of year 2014 will be.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we\u2019ll see an increase in cotton, just due to the price difference,\u201d Morgan, a cotton specialist at Texas A&amp;M, tells StateImpact Texas.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s simple economics. The prices of grains and corn are down. Farmers want to grow what makes the most money, so they\u2019re planting cotton.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s just supply and demand,&#8221; says Morgan.<\/p>\n<p>But if you dig into why corn and grain are down, and cotton up, things get complicated quickly.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agecon2.tamu.edu\/people\/faculty\/robinson-john\/\">John Robinson<\/a>,\u00a0a professor in cotton marketing, also at A&amp;M, says there are two main reasons.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/140636377&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_artwork=true\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><!--more-->One is familiar to Texans:\u00a0drought.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you look at a drought monitor map in the places that are most important for growing cotton and grains, it\u2019s pretty dry there,&#8221; Robinson tells StateImpact Texas.\u00a0\u201cFrom an economic return standpoint. If you\u2019re going to have a reduced yield due to drought. Cotton is the better crop to have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second reason is the drop in corn and grain.<\/p>\n<p>Robinson says demand for corn to make ethanol has leveled off. The EPA has<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/11\/16\/us\/for-first-time-epa-proposes-reducing-ethanol-requirement-for-gas-mix.html\"> considered reducing<\/a> the amount it mandates in US fuel mixes. Even if it doesn\u2019t, better fuel efficiency means there won\u2019t be the same need for it.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/02\/12\/is-texas-ready-to-get-kinky-about-hemp\/\">Is Texas Ready to Get Kinky About Hemp?<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/03\/04\/all-about-the-texas-agriculture-commissioner-farms-gas-pumps-and-school-lunches\/\">All About the Texas Ag Commissioner: Farms, Gas Pumps and School Lunches<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/06\/06\/why-texas-cattle-ranching-continues-to-decline\/\">Why Texas Cattle Ranching Continues to Decline<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/agriculture\/\">All About the Texas Department of Agriculture<\/a><\/p><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/119835727-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/drought\/\">Everything You Need to Know About the Texas Drought<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>While that demand is slowing, corn yields in the Midwest were high last year. And this year, he says &#8220;the\u00a0USDA at least is projecting trend line yields.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you pencil it out, with the projected demand we have and the projected supply we have then we\u2019d have more than enough corn,&#8221; says Robinson.<\/p>\n<p>Robinson and others also say reduced demand from ranching has taken a toll on corn and grain prices.<\/p>\n<p>Since the great Texas drought of 2001, &#8220;livestock has been in decline in the face of drought and high grain prices,&#8221; says<a href=\"http:\/\/agecon.tamu.edu\/faculty-staff\/faculty\/welch-mark\/\">\u00a0Mark Welch<\/a>, an\u00a0associate professor and extension economist in grain marketing at Texas A&amp;M University.<\/p>\n<p>But, unlike Robinson and Morgan, Welch thinks some farmers might still opt to grow corn and grain this year after all. The reason is\u00a0the situation in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out the region is known as the bread basket of Europe. The uncertainty there caused by the Russian annexation of Crimea, has stirred up fear of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2014\/mar\/03\/ukraine-crisis-crimea-hits-price-wheat-corn\">a global shortage of grain and corn<\/a>. That has started to drive US prices back up again. And that might prompt some farmers to reconsider their options ahead of planting season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe story\u2019s not over yet,&#8221; says Welch. &#8220;I\u2019m thinking we may hang on to some more grain acres we thought we were going to lose \u2026 it will be interesting to see how it plays out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every year Texas farmers are faced with a choice: should they focus on growing corn, cotton, or sorghum?\u00a0Gaylon Morgan has an\u00a0inkling\u00a0what kind of year 2014 will be. &#8220;I think we\u2019ll see an increase in cotton, just due to the price difference,\u201d Morgan, a cotton specialist at Texas A&amp;M, tells StateImpact Texas. It\u2019s simple economics. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[61,140,320],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35307"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35357,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35307\/revisions\/35357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}