A Lower Picture for Cotton Production

We are getting into the numbers and the numbers are lower as we talk cotton and the latest USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates numbers out on the twelfth.

The balance sheet for 2024/25 shows lower production, lower exports, and lower ending stocks domestically when compared to last month. The September NASS Forecast of U.S. production is 14.5 million bales. That’s down about 600,000 from last month and is largely being seen as a response to reduced yields in the Southwest.

That’s domestic, but this is a world report after all. The global cotton balance sheet for 2024/25 production, consumption, trade, and beginning and ending stocks were also all reduced. Weighing down the number for world production were smaller crops here at home as well as in India and Pakistan. The declines more than offset a larger crop in China.

All of that said, the season-average upland farm price in the U.S. is unchanged at 66 cents per pound.