US cotton farmers may find it difficult to turn a profit this year due to high prices for fuel, fertiliser and other agricultural inputs, an official of an industry group said on Friday.
Plain Cotton Growers (PCG) executive vice president Steve Verett said in a forum that "all inputs for 2004 are costing more, from seed and fertiliser to fuel and irrigation costs."
Verett said with natural gas prices recently hitting four-month highs "it's hard to see how an irrigated cotton producer could come out ahead this year without a bumper crop and timely rains."
Natgas prices recently returned to above $6 per thousand cubic feet after surging to over $7 last January.
PCG is a group of cotton producers in the plains of Texas, the top growing state in the country. Texas plants almost 6.0 million acres to cotton of the 14 million sown in the United States annually.
Randy Boman, an agronomist with Texas Co-operative Extension agricultural offices, said sowing of the state's irrigated portion of the 3.5 million or so acres of cotton will "probably be completed by the end of next week."
But, he added, "Many of our dryland growers in the southern High Plains are awaiting another inch or so of rainfall to top off the upper soil profile."
Farmers are engaged in spring plantings across the US cotton belt. USDA's May monthly supply/demand report said US farmers are expected to harvest 17.6 million (480-lb) bales of cotton in 2004/05, down from 18.26 million in 2003/04.