Released Aug. 31, 2007

PINE BLUFF, Ark. - Cotton has covered the fields around here as far as anyone can remember. This year, King Cotton has competition.

Arkansas farmers have planted less cotton this year than they have in almost 20 years, adapting to falling cotton prices and the rise in prices for biofuel crops.

"Throughout farming history here, cotton has been dominant," said William "Bill" Groce, executive director of the Jefferson County Farm Service Agency.

According to the Boll Weevil Eradication program supervisor for the district, Jefferson County's cotton acreage was down 50.9 percent from a year ago to 20,145, according to the county FSA office.

That's a long way from King Cotton's heyday from the end of World War II to the mid-70s. In 1949, 2.7 million cotton acres were planted statewide in Arkansas.

Corn in Jefferson County has grown from 7,505 acres in 2006 to 43,858 acres in 2007.

The trend is apparent in places like Jefferson County, where cotton has long been king but is now being overthrown by crops such as corn and soybeans.

"We're seeing a very large move away from cotton into other commodities, says Don Plunkett, county staff chair for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service. "Corn took a lot of that. But then, when soybeans spiked at around $8 a month or so ago, that took out some more cotton acres."

Corn is valued for ethanol production.

"We have folks that are growing corn steady and have some niche markets they pursue, such as deer corn in bags," Plunkett said. "We have cattle producers who want to locate farms that will sell them lots of corn for cattle feed."

The nation's farmers responded to higher corn prices by planting an estimated 15 percent more corn acres in 2007.

Soybean prices are on the rise because it's needed to create biodiesel fuel, plastics and food products.

"An underlying factor for the decline of cotton is, of course, the low price for cotton," says Plunkett. "Farmers are having difficulty moving last year's crop into the market, and some of it is still in the warehouse. It has gotten to the point where farmers may have to pay for storage costs."

Jason Young had 700 acres of cotton on his Jefferson County land last year; this year, he only has 300.

"Some of the best ground I have has been swapped over to corn," says Young. "Corn prices have dictated what I have chosen to grow this year."

Test plots for the county and test plots for Croplan Genetics make up a large portion of the 300 cotton acres.

"If it wasn't for that, my cotton crops would be depleted even more," he says. "When you have $4 [a bushel] corn versus 52- to 54-cent [per pound] cotton, you can make a lot more money on corn right now than you can on cotton."

Anecdotally, Plunkett says he has talked with several farmers who have been planting cotton for as long as they can remember, and this will be the first year that most of them won't be growing cotton.

Arkansas has been in the top five cotton producing states in the nation since 2001, ranking second in both 2005 and 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The 2007 cotton crop includes about 830,000 acres, says Plunkett, down from about 1.2 million last year.

In 2005, the state's cotton harvest was the second highest in recorded history with 2.2 million bales produced, according to National Agricultural Statistics Service data.

The harvest for 2006 exceeded that, with the production of 2.5 million bales.

"We're used to seeing some pretty big fluctuations," says Plunkett, adding that cotton production will be spotty across the state. Some counties will see more of a decline in cotton than others, because of set cotton acreage tied to gins in some areas.

Plunkett says he's heard rumblings about price rallies for rice and wheat.

"There are things happening in everything except cotton," he says. "Farmers are looking at prices, and if those prices for cotton came up for 2008, we would shift back into cotton for sure. But if this thing stays like it is and the corn prices continue to be driven by ethanol, and soybean prices continue to be driven by biodiesel or industry use or plastics or manufacturing or so forth …we'll just have to wait and see."

Young has heard of several farmers selling their cotton equipment, but he has held onto his for now.

"I haven't given up on cotton, I've just shrunk way back," he says. "But I will say this, If the cotton market stays in the doldrums and the grain market keeps coming up, I don't know that I won't get out of the cotton market altogether. The markets will dictate what we grow - they have to."

"We haven't seen growers selling off farm equipment. They're parking it for right now," Groce said with a chuckle.

For more information about Arkansas agriculture, visit the extension's Web site, http://www.uaex.edu, or contact your county extension agent.

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http://www.uaex.edu/news/august2007/0831kingcotton.htm

Contact: Lamar James, (501) 671-2187 or (501) 753-0207, ljames@uaex.edu