VIII.

Production

Cotton ranks just behind corn, soybeans, wheat, and hay among the leading cash crops of United States agriculture and is among the nation's principal agricultural exports. The leading cotton-producing states are Texas, California, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Arizona.

Surplus stocks of cotton on hand in the United States fluctuated widely during the 1970s. The world economic recession of 1973-74 ushered in a period during which both production and consumption of cotton dropped. Production, however, fell faster than consumption, and by the mid-1970s the U.S. surplus had been reduced to the lowest level in 50 years in order to compensate. Toward the end of the decade, rising prices caused by the shortages had stimulated increased production, but at the same time these higher prices made domestic cotton more vulnerable to competition from artificial fibers and imported cotton goods. World demand for cotton continued to be erratic, and some groups lobbied for increased price-supports, but an upward trend began in the 1980s.

Cotton is still a principal raw material for the world's textile industry, but its dominant position has been seriously eroded by synthetic fibers. In the United States, cotton accounts today for about 35 percent of the materials processed in textile mills, as against 80 percent before World War II. Net per capita consumption of cotton fibers in the United States, after declining by more than one-third between 1950 and 1970, increased during the 1980s and by the early 1990s was about 12 kg (about 27 lb) per year.

World production of cotton in the early 1990s stood at 18.9 million metric tons annually. In the 1930s, the United States produced more than half the world's cotton; by the early 1990s it was turning out about a sixth. The other leading producers included China, India, Pakistan, Brazil, and Turkey.

Contributed by: National Cotton Council of America