USDA has released its October 2023 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report. Here’s this month’s summary for cotton:

The 2023/24 U.S. cotton supply and demand estimates show lower production, exports, and ending stocks compared with last month. Production is 315,000 bales lower at 12.8 million bales, down 2% from a month earlier as lower yields in Texas offset gains elsewhere. With production projected lower and exports down 100,000 bales to 12.2 million, ending stocks are reduced 200,000 bales. The 2023/24 season-average price for upland cotton is forecast unchanged from last month at 80.0 cents per pound, nearly 5 cents below the final 2022/23 price of 84.8 cents.

World 2023/24 beginning stocks of cotton are 10.3 million bales lower this month than in September, a decline to 82.8 million, entirely attributable to a permanent accounting change in the balance sheet for Brazil back to 2000/01. Ending stocks for the 2023/24 world balance sheet are also down by 10.0 million bales because of this change.

To better account for the change in timing of Brazil’s harvest, USDA has shifted ahead by one year its 2000/01-2022/23 production estimates. Until this change, USDA’s estimated Brazilian and global ending stocks were significantly inflated because they reflected Brazil’s entire year’s production. See the Foreign Agricultural Service’s October 2023 issue of Cotton: World Markets and Trade for further details.

In an additional production change, the estimate for what is now USDA’s 2023/24 Brazil crop was increased 160,000 bales to 14.56 million, reflecting an Oct. 10 revision by Brazil’s Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento (CONAB).

Other changes in the world 2023/24 cotton balance sheet are small. Production is 210,000 bales higher than in September as larger crops in Brazil, Argentina, and Tanzania offset reductions in the United States, Australia, and Greece. World consumption and trade are virtually unchanged, down 89,000 bales and down 35,000 bales, respectively.