For decades cotton was king. But this year the Louisiana cotton crop is expected to be the smallest in history. State Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain says input costs to produce cotton has gone up and the price farmers can get for cotton has gone down from two dollars a pound in the mid-1800s.
“That’s $2 in dollars of that day. Today, if you look in at where cotton is, it’s at 67.38 cents per pound. And so that is a big part of what’s going on,” Strain explained.
“Soybeans is Louisiana’s largest crop, followed by corn and rice. The number of cotton gins has also declined from 56 in 2001 to 15 today. Strain says farmers will not spend time growing a crop that’s hard to turn a profit.
“Bottom line: It’s about price, about input cost, profitability, and then other crops,” Strain said.
Strain says less than 100,000 acres of cotton could be planted this year.
“One time in the Louisiana, we had over a million acres. That’s right, a million acres of cotton. And that cotton now has been supplanted mainly by soybeans,” Strain said.
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