Sunday, May 18, 1997

Weevils will be zapped one way or another at some cost

By J.T. SMITH / Abilene Reporter-News

Since the Texas Supreme Court declared the Boll Weevil Eradication Program unconstitutional in Texas on April 30, there's been enough rhetoric to suffocate all the weevils in Texas.

So let's cut through it and look at some realities.

The issue is not - and has never been - whether Texas will grow cotton or not. Texas is the No. 1 producer of cotton in the United States. The gins, compresses, warehouses, and even some top-notch textile facilities operate in Texas. The city of Lubbock itself - and surrounding High Plains counties - are dependent upon cotton.

A study by Texas A&M and Texas Tech University showed that High Plains regional business sales could drop by $500 million a year if the boll weevil populations are allowed to go unchecked.

As the leading cash crop in Texas, cotton generates $1.6 billion for Texas farmers alone. It is worth billions more to the Texas economy and employs many thousands of people in the state.

Cotton is not going to vanish because of the boll weevil, cotton bollworm, aphids, and assorted other pests. Farmers will control the weevil and other pesky critters.

So the real issues are simply two:

-- At what cost will the cotton grower control the boll weevil?

-- Will farmers work together as a team in fighting the weevil, or is it back to the old days of "every man for himself?"

That's it, folks.

Don't think farmers will quit spraying because five out of nine Texas Supreme Court justices acknowledged that the weevil program was good yet still ruled that the Texas Legislature couldn't give the broad power to administer it to essentially a private foundation.

It's just the opposite. Without eradication, more pesticide than ever will be used. It will be back to the ol' days.

The Boll Weevil Eradication Program began in Virginia with the pilot program in 1978. Next came North Carolina. Then South Carolina. Florida, Georgia, and Alabama soon joined the effort.

North Carolina was down to a mere 20,000 or so acres of cotton for the entire state before weevil eradication. After eradication, land devoted to cotton production soon swelled to more than 600,000 acres. New cotton gins were rising up as fast they could be constructed.

King Cotton had returned to the South.

Many farmers went from spraying 16 to 20 times per season for weevils to just one containment spray - and only that if needed along a buffer zone.

Before eradication, Georgia - once a proud cotton state - had fallen to 300,000 acres of cotton. Since weevil eradication, Georgia has increased its cotton to 1.5 million acres.

Throughout the South as a whole, insecticide use has been reduced 40 to 85 percent.

Obviously, this is a tremendous savings in production costs to the Southern grower.

At the same time, such decreased use of pesticide is also a positive step for the environment.

Arizona was declared weevil-free in 1991, and farmers have not sprayed for boll weevils since.

But Texas is a big, BIG state.

The original plan (for many years) had been to let the eradication work progress meticulously from North Texas to deep South Texas in the Rio Grande Valley, then push the weevil on back into Mexico from which it came to the United States in 1892.

But somewhere along the way, that got changed. The Valley got in early.

The Valley is a different world - one where growers began planting cotton in February. (Some years, we still may be trying to gin the last of the previous year's crop in February).

Valley farmers have a contest to gin the first bale in the United States that usually comes about June 20 or 21st. The nation's first bale always comes from the Valley. It's just a matter of which farmer wins the contest (which is witnessed and verified by the local police department).

It's not uncommon for a farmer in our area at Rule or Anson or Roby, for example, to still be attempting to plant cotton the third week of June if a stormy May delayed cotton planting.

Hence, our part of Texas - because of the latitude - is much more like Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, or Georgia in its cultural practices than the Rio Grande Valley.

Some powerful growers in the Valley have decided they would rather tackle weevils on their own. That's their right.

If, before June 2, the Texas Legislature can come up with a better mousetrap - perhaps under the leadership of the Texas Department of Agriculture - the weevil effort can be saved.

Although it's often said "you can't please everyone" - hopefully, a new team effort would please the different regions of Texas.

There's just too much at stake and too much already invested.

In just the past three years, the farmer-owned Farm Credit Bank of Texas and seven Production Credit Associations have provided financing - in good faith - for the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Program to the tune of $37 million.

The Rolling Plains PCA alone is owed $3,123,462 by the eradication program.

No matter what the Texas Legislature does now, unless there is some assurance in the law that this existing debt can be collected, it's doubtful any financial institution would provide funding for the weevil program - or any similar program in the future.

As soon as the next morning after the long-awaited Supreme Court decision, some cotton industry folks in a southern state were calling some Texas cotton leaders here on the Rolling Plains and "inquiring" as to what would be done with all the massive amount of equipment that had been immediately idled with the high court's ruling.

Meanwhile, USDA appropriations for fiscal year 1997 allow for $34 million in loan authority across the entire Cotton Belt for boll weevil eradication. Texas had been due to get about $18.5 million of that, starting in mid-June. But USDA officials had made it clear Texas could not be eligible for the money until a favorable Supreme Court decision.

But the ruling went the other way. Obviously, the Southern states with ongoing weevil eradication programs will be after this money like a dog on a bone.

The message is clear: the South is ready to battle the weevil.

Texas will battle the weevil, too. The question is whether that will be together - or individually. And, at what cost?