Welasco, Texas
June 9, 2009
Losses could mirror disastrous
2006 losses
This year’s crop of cotton, corn and grain sorghum in the Lower
Rio Grande Valley is shaping up to be a repeat of the drought
disaster of 2006, according to an expert with the
Texas AgriLife
Extension Service.
“So far, it’s looking bad, and it’s mainly drought-related” said
Dr. Luis Ribera, an AgriLife Extension agricultural economist in
Weslaco.
“It’s still early in the season,” he said, "but so far, the
number of failed acres is showing that we’re on course to repeat
what happened in 2006 when we lost 75 percent of our cotton, 87
percent of our corn and 44 percent of our grain sorghum.”
The only hint of good news in all that, Ribera said, is that
only about 60,000 aes of cotton were planted this year, compared
to 250,000 in 2006.
“Most of what was not planted in cotton this year went to grain
sorghum,” he said. “Prices for sorghum are healthier than they
are for cotton, but a drought puts all crops at peril.”
As of June 4, growers in the four-county Lower Rio Grande Valley
area have already received $3.6 million in insurance payments on
lost crops, Ribera said.
“That indemnification was based on losses so far of 31.3 percent
of the cotton, 6.4 percent of the corn and 2 percent of
sorghum,” he said. “In 2006, at the end of June, we had already
racked up losses in cotton and corn in the 60 percent range and
almost 20 percent of sorghum.”
Ribera said the U.S. Department of Agriculture data of failed
acres shows that by the end of the season, crop percentage
losses could be similar to what they were in 2006 when growers
lost a total of $34.3 million.
“Crops in 2007 and 2008 were decent years with normal losses,”
he said, “but not this year.”
In addition to the 60,671 cotton acres planted this year,
growers also planted 297,098 acres of grain sorghum and 36,504
acres of corn.
"The relatively small cotton crop this year is due to a variety
of economic factors,” Ribera said, “including low cotton market
prices, the weak economy and the relatively low price of oil,
which favors the production of synthetic fabrics over cotton.”
Consequently, many growers here elected to plant sorghum
instead, Ribera said.
“The market price of sorghum is good this year, at about $4.25
per bushel right now. It’s an easier crop to grow with fewer
inputs and investments, but the profit margin isn’t as high as
it is for cotton, in a good year.”
The price of cotton is at about 45 cents per pound, which is
below breakeven for growers here, Ribera said.
Sam Simmons, who with his two sons farms cotton, sugarcane,
sorghum, corn and soybeans near Harlingen, said this year’s
Valley cotton crop will likely be one of the smallest ever, a
far cry from the days of harvesting over 350,000 bales of
cotton.
“Most of what we harvest this year will come from the irrigated
fields,” he said, “but overall yields won’t be good. We’ll be
hard-pressed to make 65,000 bales.”
Simmons said dryland cotton, which makes up the majority of this
year’s crop, never had a chance.
"The Valley probably has a half to a third of what was planted
in dryland cotton still out there,” he said. “The rest has
failed and what is left won’t yield well. It never got the rain
it needed when it was small, and it’s probably too late to
recover. We won’t know for another four or five weeks, but the
recent rains we’ve gotten likely won’t do any good.”
Before light scattered rains fell in late May, the southern tip
of Texas had not had significant rain since August, according to
the National Weather Service.
“We’d have to make significant yields to do well,” Simmons said.
“Anymore it’s been a full-time job just trying to get our
operations to be leaner and tighter. Cotton prices are low,
global demand is weak and crop input prices just keep rising.
Fertilizer is up 40 percent over last year, labor is up, seed
costs…it’s tough.”
Simmons said his sugarcane crop is smaller than what it was last
year at this time, also for a lack of rainfall.
Ray Prewett, president of Texas Citrus Mutual, said it’s too
early to determine what impact the drought will have on this
year’s winter citrus crop.
“Citrus has not been impacted as much as the annual row crops,
especially the non-irrigated row crops,” he said. “But citrus
will suffer to some extent if we don’t get some rain. But at
this point, it’s too early to determine how the quantity and
quality might be affected.”
Unlike other crops in the area, vegetable production may have
benefitted from the drought, according to Dr. Juan Anciso, an
AgriLife Extension vegetable specialist.
"All our vegetable production is under irrigation,” Anciso said.
“So for vegetables, if there’s plenty of irrigation water
available, a drought can be an ideal situation because growers
aren’t battling the insects and diseases that rains bring.”
Anciso said the overall yields of winter vegetables, especially
onions and carrots, were high this year, which helped growers in
a depressed market.
“Except for watermelons, whose prices were “fair to good,” as
they have been for the past six to nine years, market prices for
vegetables were low.” |
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