Arkansas farmers planted 370,000 acres in cotton this spring, up from 210,000 acres in 2015, according to statistics released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The increase reflected a national trend, with the planting of cotton up 17 percent over last year -- from 8.58 million acres to 10 million, according to the department's National Agriculture Statistics Service.
Despite the increase this year, cotton is still on a down-slide across the "Cotton Belt" -- Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi -- where cotton planting has decreased by 2.5 million acres since 2005. Soybeans largely replaced the cotton.
Bill Robertson, an agronomist specializing in cotton for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said cotton benefited early this spring from lower prices for corn and soybeans. "As we got closer into planting, corn prices, soybean prices were all down," Robertson said Thursday. "Cotton was the best thing going for farmers, and they can get pretty creative."
In 2015, the situation was reversed: prices were good for soybeans and soy oil, so cotton acreage in Arkansas hit its lowest point ever. "Again, it all comes down to prices," Robertson said. "We're very fortunate in Arkansas to have the opportunity to grow a lot of different crops and also have the flexibility to change [crops] in a short time."
He also cited the cost-share assistance payments through the nation's new Cotton Ginning Cost-Share program. The cash payments to farmers for planting cotton are an effective tool for promoting cotton domestically, Robertson said.
Overall, Arkansas farmers planted 7.2 million acres this year, up from 7.1 million last year but down from 7.4 million acres in 2014.
Arkansas leads the nation in rice production, and farmers here boosted their planting accordingly.
They planted a total 1.58 million acres of rice this year, with long-grain rice accounting for 1.4 million of those acres. The total a year ago for all rice was 1.3 million acres.
Medium-grain rice accounted for 150,000 acres, down from 245,000 acres last year. The planting of short-grain rice in the state, as usual, was minimal. The 1.5-million acre total for all grains is the fifth largest in Arkansas history and the highest since a record-breaking total of 1.79 million acres in 2010
Arkansas also saw a sizable increase in the planting of corn -- from 460,000 acres last year to 750,000 acres this year. Farmers across the nation planted enough corn to hit the third-highest total since 1944.
Among other crops in Arkansas:
• Soybeans were down slightly, from 3.2 million acres planted last year to 3.15 million acres this year. Nationally, soybean planting hit a record high of 83.7 million acres.
• Many farmers in Arkansas have tried their hand at peanuts lately. They planted 20,000 acres of them this year, a record. The state won't be catching the nation's top peanut producer anytime soon: Georgia peanut farmers planted 760,000 acres this year.
• Winter wheat dropped from 350,000 acres last year to 200,000 acres.
• Grain sorghum acreage in Arkansas all but hit rock bottom -- from 450,000 acres in 2015 to 40,000 this year, a drop attributed to prices and demand. The UA Division of Agriculture said China is the state's biggest export market for sorghum but demand there is down 18 percent from a year ago.
Business on 07/02/2016