By Emmy Powell
Communications Specialist

A bad cotton crop spells disaster for the gins and the numerous other businesses and economies that rely on the crop.

“Reduced production from this year’s cotton crop not only means bad news for farmers, but it also impacts the local economies that rely on cotton,” Brant Wilbourn, Texas Farm Bureau associate director of Commodity and Regulatory Activities, said. “A smaller cotton crop means downstream users—gins, warehouses and shippers—will oversee and process less cotton. That’s a loss of economic activity.”

Rolling Plains cotton farmers like Kevin Corzine were optimistic for a good crop with the promising spring rains, but another hot, dry summer has led to decreased yield.

But other parts of the state saw a good crop. In Medina County, a father-son duo were harvesting four to five bales per acre.

A good crop is good news for cotton gins, and a Dimmit gin owner is optimistic about the year.

“We are optimistic about 2024. From a moisture standpoint, we are in a little better shape than we were last year, so that brings some optimism,” Jordy Roland, manager at North Gin in Dimmit, told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network.

But drought isn’t the only challenge for cotton gins. A shortage of skilled labor to work in the gins is a struggle many operators are facing, but some have found workers through the H-2A program.

“It has gotten tougher over the last few years from a labor standpoint—sometimes finding labor or labor costs,” Roland said. “There are some good programs out there. Some other gins have used the H-2A program and had some success with that. If we do meet a larger crop, we’re going to need that much more labor.”

Beyond labor challenges, warehouse storage has been another issue.

“The last two crop years have been very difficult from a warehouse perspective,” Eric Wanjura, president and CEO of Farmers Cooperative Compress in Lubbock, said. “To put it in perspective, our five-year receiving average is something over 2 million bales, and we’ve received around 800,000 bales the last two crop years, 35 to 40% of our five-year average. That’s put a strain on our operation from a volume standpoint. But we’re optimistic about the ’24 crop.”

Wanjura noted they face challenges when it comes to insurance on their infrastructure, as well.

“Cotton gins and warehouses don’t have protection like our growers do through crop insurance,” Wanjura said. “Our business models are dependent on volume. The infrastructure has suffered. We are able to control a lot of our variable costs, but the fixed costs and our operations—there simply hasn’t been enough volume to cover that cost.”

The future of cotton depends on weather and the possibility of a new, five-year farm bill.

“It’s time lawmakers work in a bipartisan manner and pass a farm bill that addresses the challenges farmers now face since the last bill was passed in 2018,” Wilbourn said.