For Texas cotton farmers, 2017 was shaping up to be the best harvest in more than a decade, according to NBC News. But then Hurricane Harvey hit and turned their prospects upside down.
The turn of events was painful, given that in 2016 “farmers were lucky to harvest one bale of cotton per acre of the profitable crop.” This year, they had been expecting yields of three or four bales per acre.
“It was going to be good,” Bay City farmer Ginger Beyer told NBC. “Everyone was super pumped-up for redemption for last year, then the storm blew up out of nowhere.” NBC said that hundreds of thousands of bales of cotton were lost from what was expected to be an almost-record year, though the Texas Farm Bureau still does not have a clear picture of the economic loss.
Ag Web said that at a minimum, Texas cotton growers face a 400,000-bale loss from the effects of Harvey. “Even with crop insurance policies in place, the fine print could dictate minimal relief in a strong percentage of cases,” it said.