Wednesday, September 24, 1997

Cotton crop looks bigger

By J.T. Smith / Abilene Reporter-News

USDA has projected the U.S. cotton crop at 18.42 million bales in its September estimate.

That's a 640,000-bale increase from its August forecast.

Of the 18.4 million bales, some 17.8 million bales of Upland cotton are expected to be harvested. Most of the increase came from the Mid-South region and here in the Southwest region of the Cotton Belt.

USDA raised the Mid-South estimate to 4.96 million bales in September, an increase of 240,000 bales from the August estimate. The Agriculture Department also increased the Southwest estimate to a whopping 5.6 million bales, an increase of 430,000 bales from last month.

The current 1997-98 season crop projection would compare to the 1996-97 U.S. harvest of 18.9 million bales, and a crop of 17.9 million bales two seasons ago.

Locally, the crop continues to make good progress in the Abilene area.

United Nations climate treaty bad news for farmers

The United Nations Climate Treaty is bad news for both farmers and ranchers.

The proposed climate treaty, due to be negotiated in December in Japan, could substantially increase production costs for U.S. farmers and ranchers.

Bob Stallman, president of the Texas Farm Bureau, said the United Nations treaty -- as proposed -- would threaten the economic survival of our agricultural producers.

"Fuel costs increases imposed by the treaty would mean big hardships for family farms like mine," Stallman said.

Stallman noted that fuel and energy-related inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides account for about one-fourth of all farm operation expenses.

The Farm Bureau president said treaty would put binding caps on greenhouse emissions, ultimately rolling them back to 1990 levels. Stallman said estimates show a 20 percent increase in energy prices would result.

"Electricity could go up 20 percent. Some estimates are that gas and motor fuels could go up by 50 cents a gallon or more," Stallman noted.

Stallman notes the United Nations treaty -- as it now stands -- would be especially unfair because it would force only developed nations to meet legally binding targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The so-called "developing countries" of the world would be exempt.

Stallman said that this would put U.S. farmers at an unfair disadvantage with foreign competitors.

It would give competitors such as Mexico, China, Chile, and Argentina -- with their already-lower labor/production costs -- a major competitive advantage.