USDA has released its September 2024 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report. Here’s this month’s summary for cotton, where – once again – the operative word is still “lower”:

The U.S. cotton balance sheet for 2024/25 shows lower production, exports, and ending stocks compared to last month. Beginning stocks and domestic use are unchanged.

The September NASS forecast of U.S. production is 14.5 million bales, down about 600,000 bales from August, largely due to reduced yields for upland cotton in the Southwest. The all-cotton yield forecast of 807 pounds per acre is 33 pounds lower than last month. With lower production for 2024/25, exports are reduced 200,000 bales to 11.8 million, and ending stocks are decreased 500,000 bales to 4.0 million, or 29% of projected use. The 2024/25 season-average upland farm price is unchanged at 66 cents per pound.

Revisions to the 2023/24 U.S. cotton balance sheet include a 400,000-bale increase in beginning stocks and a similar reduction in unaccounted based on revised data and methodologies. For more information, see this month’s edition of the Foreign Agricultural Service’s Cotton: World Markets and Trade.

In the global cotton balance sheet for 2024/25, production, consumption, trade, and beginning and ending stocks are all reduced. World production is lowered by about 1.2 million bales as smaller crops in the United States, India, and Pakistan more than offset a larger crop in China. World consumption is reduced about 460,000 bales, largely due to a 200,000-bale decrease in Vietnam and 100,000-bale reductions in Bangladesh and Turkey. World trade is lowered about 550,000 bales as reduced imports by China, Vietnam, Turkey, and Bangladesh offset an increase in India. World ending stocks are reduced 1.1 million bales from August to about 76.5 million.

The forecast for the world price of cotton, represented by the “A” Index, is unchanged at 81.5 cents.

The 2023/24 global balance sheet is revised to reflect higher beginning stocks and mill use, and lower ending stocks. Production and trade are marginally reduced.