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Hard
times in the land of cotton
Wish you were in the land of cotton?
You are, but maybe not for long.
After a 70-year hiatus, cotton growing had really taken
off in Virginia. In the last decade, crop acreages have
increased twenty-fold from 5,000 acres to 100,000 acres.
Fields stretch from Dinwiddie County east to the ocean.
In mid-October, seas of white covered fields alongside
U.S. 460 in Suffolk, making bits of the Old South look
really southern once again.
Unlike North Carolina, however, where cotton's resurgence
to 1 million acres is meant to replace tobacco, most
of Virginia's cotton is not grown in tobacco areas.
Cotton is a cash crop in Virginia, and its comeback
is a significant event in the state's agricultural history,
especially when subsidiary industries such as cotton
gins and processing units are considered, says Spencer
Neale, senior assistant director of commodities for
the Virginia Farm Bureau.
How long farmers can remain in high cotton remains to
be seen, however. Neale notes that cotton was hugely
profitable just five years ago. At that time, prices
reached a healthy 80 cents per pound. Today they have
dropped to low 30 cents-per-pound levels, cutting seriously
into farmers' pocketbooks.
The low prices have especially impacted Virginia's Eastern
Shore where 5,000 acres are grown, says Jim Stern, general
manager of Shore Gin & Cotton Inc in Melfa. Stern
doesn't see any improvement in global cotton prices
anytime soon. If not, farmers will once again dump the
crop-proving that when it comes to cotton, old times
can be easily forgotten.
- Peter Galuszka
Return
to Virginia Business - November 2001
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