Cotton may be king in the Mid-South, but a February survey from the National Cotton Council shows that corn and soybeans are making a run at the crown.
Mid-South farmers polled for the councilΆs 30th Annual Early Season Planting Intentions Survey plan on planting 1 million acres of cotton, down almost 51 percent from 2.03 million acres last year.
“Cotton farmers are responding to market signals,” Gary Adams, vice president at the National Cotton Council, said. “Relative prices of cotton and competing crops have been the primary factor influencing U.S. acreage.”
Across the country, U.S. cotton producers expect to plant 9.01 million acres of cotton in 2013, a decline of almost 27 percent from 2012. In the Southwest, where about half the countryΆs cotton acreage is located, farmers expect to plant about 25 percent fewer acres.
But in no other region is expected acreage anticipated to fall so drastically as in the Mid-South.
Farmers in Tennessee indicated theyΆd plant almost 48 percent fewer acres with cotton in 2013; declines were even more severe in Mississippi and Arkansas, where farmers expect to plant 58 percent and 63 percent fewer acres with cotton, respectively.
The councilΆs findings appear as a headwind to Mid-South farmers, many of whom staved off the worst of last yearΆs record-setting drought. Recent research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis indicated a “notable increase” in area farm income and spending through fourth quarter 2012.