Cotton Growers Face Global and Local Problems in 2020
3 February 2020 Cotton growers in the U.S. face a number of headwinds in 2020 that go far outside – thousands of miles in fact – of the acres where their crop will grow this season.
At the top of that list is the now cooling global trade war with China, the largest producer of cotton. The trade war with China in 2018 and 2019: caused a significant drop in cotton prices; increased pressures on cotton demand; and shifted market share in the cotton market away from the U.S. to countries like India, Australia, and Brazil.
Before the trade deal was made, Jody Campiche, vice president of economics and policy analysis for the National Cotton Council told Farm Journal’s AGPROP in December: “The current trade dispute with China and the resulting retaliatory tariffs on U.S. cotton and cotton yarn are increasingly harming the U.S. cotton industry and long-term market share in China. The immediate impact has been a decline in market share of China’s cotton imports from 45% for the 2016 and 2017 crops, down to 18% for the 2018 crop, while Brazil’s market share increased from 7% in 2017 to 23% in 2018. This lost market share has reduced overall export sales and shipments, further depressing U.S. cotton prices.”
Additionally, according to Textile Outlook International (Issue 200) – from the global business information company Textiles Intelligence – cotton prices will remain weak in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons as cotton demand decreases and surpluses grow. The report said that the average price of cotton has fallen in the 2019-2020 growing season to $0.76/lb. – a drop of $0.11/lb. from the previous growing season.
Extreme Weather Impacting ‘Thirsty’ Cotton Crop
The issue of extreme weather also presents a challenge to farmers who are increasingly facing droughts that harm the growth of the “thirsty” cotton crop. According to some university experts, unpredictable, extreme weather is changing the reproductive and feeding patterns of pests – like tarnished plant bugs – who are moving from their wild host plants to the cotton crop earlier than they have in the past.
During the summer of 2019 in Alabama, at least one-third of the State was impacted by drought according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The Alabama Cooperative Extension Program concluded that due to the dry, drought conditions several insects – again, including plant bugs and stink bugs – moved from their wild host plants into cotton earlier than farmers expected in the late spring, causing them to feed on pinhead squares of cotton planted in early spring.
Controlling Cotton Insect Pests in Southern U.S. States
Both a trade war with China and extreme weather are monumental problems facing cotton growers in 2020. Unfortunately, growers can’t control either. What they can control is their strategy for the growing season: where on their farms it’s planted; when it’s planted; and when to apply pesticides to ensure that pests don’t cause economic damage.
Due to the change in weather patterns, cotton consultants are having to scout fields on a shorter interval early in the season compared to what was needed in years past. Insect pressure from key pests such as tarnished plant bugs are building earlier in the crop cycle than historically experienced.
A recent survey of all southern university cotton entomologists revealed that the tarnished plant bug (TPB) is the number one economic cotton insect pest in the Mid-South (Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee).
As there is now a need for TPB control earlier in the season, more tools are needed to fill the gap as products are limited. Imidacloprids have been proven to control TPB and be soft on beneficials that also aid in control of many pests other than TBP. For this reason, imidacloprid products are widely used for one to two applications early in the season.
The Cotton Grower Acreage Survey conducted in November/December 2019 found U.S. growers planned to plant approximately 12 million areas of cotton this season. While that’s a 12% decrease from 13.72 million acres planted in 2019, U.S. farmers have on average planted 12 million acres of cotton six out of the last 10 years.
It’s clear that demand for cotton crop in the U.S. will remain steady in 2020 despite the growing global trade war with China and extreme weather events that are changing the feeding and reproductive patterns of pests that typically impact the cotton crop during the planting season.
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