USDA Ups Cotton Forecast
It’s time to get into your Southeast Regional Ag News. For the Ag Information Network, I’m Haylie Shipp.
How big of a cotton crop are we looking at this year? The USDA did just release a round of numbers. Dr. Jody Campiche is the vice president of economics and policy analysis for the National Cotton Council…
“In the latest report, USDA made a surprisingly large increase to the size of the U.S. crop following a very large reduction to the crop last month. USDA increased U.S. production to 13.8 million bales which is 1.3 million bales higher than last month.”
Many were expecting an increase, an answer to higher acreage reported on the FSA Certified Acreage Report, but they weren’t expecting it to be quite this big…
“USDA increased planted acreage by 1.3 million and harvested acreage by almost 750,000. With continued drought concerns in the southwest along with weather issues in other regions, it’s still too early to determine the actual size of the crop. Even with higher production, U.S. ending stocks are still projected to be at their lowest level since 2014.”
Dr. Campiche says that the current supply fundamentals do tend to support higher prices. However, on the demand side, a slowdown in world economic activity and continued high inflation has led to further reductions in the world consumption estimate for 2022.
