Increased Cotton Acreage Calls for Number Crunching
By Ron Smith, Delta Farm Press
Although nationwide, 2019 cotton acreage is expected to increase only slightly — 2.9 percent — over 2018, the Mid-South is poised to add 13.6 percent more cotton, led by Louisiana’s 22.2 percent jump in estimated acreage, moving from 195,000 acres last year to an estimated 238,000. An acreage increase that significant could mean a lot of farmers are either getting back into cotton or planting it for the first time, says Dr. Michael Deliberto, Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge.