Lakebed is historic home to King Cotton
-May 10,2023-
“We are looking at the lowest level of cotton acreage on record this year” predicts Roger Isom, president and CEO of the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association.
For Kings County, typically the top producer in the state, it is hard to come up with an estimate he shrugs. More land is being flooded and the cold weather this spring put a crimp the planting of upland cotton by mid-April and now Pima by mid-May
Isom notes that growers have traditionally grown “a lot of cotton in the Tulare Lake bottom,” and with much of it being flooded “there will be no cotton there this year.”
Indeed satellite landscape images published by UC Davis’ Arron Smith show how much cotton was grown just last year in the Tulare lakebed in this image colored red for cotton fields.
The lakebed historically has been drained but in very wet years like this – it returns to miles of inland sea -also ending grower’s plans.
The lakebed flooded in 1969, 1983, and 1997 and now 2023. Farmers may have to give up planting here not just this year but next or even in 2025.
We see a similar bearish viewpoint around the US cotton belt. A National Cotton Producers estimate in February predicted upland cotton plantings will be down around 17% and in California by 43.3% – an estimate done before the big floods.
USDA’s March Prospective Plantings Report indicates U.S. producers intend to plant 11.3 million cotton acres in 2023, down 18.2% from the previous year. Upland area is projected to be 11.1 million acres, down 18.2% from 2022 while extra-long staple (ELS)or Pima area is projected at 154,000 acres, a 15.8% decrease.
That report says California pima acres will be down to 90,000 and upland just 15,000 acres.
Upland prices are around 83 cents a pound.California farmers planted 116,000 acres of pima last year.The current price is about $3.50/lb.
In February Isom noted” Competition for ground with processing tomatoes may also shrink cotton acreage. Canners in January agreed to pay growers a contract price of $138 per ton for tomatoes; that’s 31.4% more than last year’s price.”
Tomatoes are soggy too
But Westside tomato growers are also facing soggy ground for their crop according to published reports.”With soil still too wet for planting, farmers postponed the season’s start by three weeks, which could translate into a shortage of tomato-based items this summer, according to individual farmers and the California Tomato Growers Association”
“Flooding also delayed planting for fresh vegetables, which could lead to a national shortage of lettuce, brussel sprouts and artichokes, said Ryan Jacobsen, the CEO of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, a nonprofit group that promotes and protects agriculture.”
While Kings County growers worried just a few months ago about too little water now they find the ground is too wet to plant.
The UC Davis’s Arron Smith survey suggests the lakebed had over 50,000 acres of cotton planted last year. This year could be dramatically less.
“I doubt we hit 100,000 acres this year,” Isom predicted, referring to statewide cotton acreage.There were 132,000 acres in the ground last year.California cotton plantings reached a peak in the late 70s and early 80s, when an amazing 1.4 to 1.6 million acres were harvested each year.
Acreage in 2022 for both Pima and upland cotton is Kings County, with 42,638 acres of Pima and 4,350 acres of upland cotton.County cotton growing land added up to 51,260 acres in 2015.That compares to around 75,000 acres in 2014, 103,000 acres in 2013, 133,000 in 2011 and just about fence-row-to-fence-row at 287,000 acres planted back in 1979.
California’s production of ELS or Pima cotton represents over 90% of the total U.S. Pima cotton production. Production of upland types in the state represents about 4% of U.S. annual production on average.
In 1963, there were 299 active cotton gins in California, the highest ever. In 2011 there were 30 active gins, and now 24. Roger Isom says the industry lost another gin in the Sacramento area in the past year.
:graphic courtesy UC Davis Arron Smith