Monsanto sees drop in 2012 US cotton planting

American cotton plantings in 2012 are seen falling 15 percent to around 12.5 million acres although the final figure will depend a great deal on prices of cotton and rival grains, as well as the vagaries of weather, a top official of lifesciences firm Monsanto said.
"Cotton acres are going to be down," David Rhylander, the marketing lead for Monsanto's wholly owned cotton seed firm Deltapine, told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday at the start of the annual Beltwide cotton conference here. Rhylander said another key question is what happens in Texas, the biggest cotton growing state in the United States, which was hit last year by its worst drought in a century. There are worries over Texas because the La Nina phenomenon which caused the drought is still around, although its strength is much reduced. "Will they get rains before spring?" Rhylander asked.