The drought-hit U.S. cotton crop is slightly larger than previously thought, at 14 million bales, but exports are stagnant for this marketing year, said the USDA on Thursday. The monthly WASDE report said cotton production was down worldwide, due to flooding in Pakistan and excessive rainfall in Australia and West Africa.
This year’s U.S. cotton crop was forecast to sell for an average of 85 cents a pound, down 5 cents from last month. Exports would be a relatively small 12.5 million bales. Although the U.S. crop would be 1.5 percent larger than forecast in October, it would be one-fifth smaller than it was last year because of drought, especially in Texas, the No. 1 cotton state.
Pakistan’s crop was forecast at 4.2 million bales, down by 700,000 bales from the previous estimate. “Gin arrivals there signal the extent of damage from earlier precipitation and flooding,” said USDA analysts. “Unusually high precipitation is also driving a 500,000-bale reduction in Australia’s 2022/23 cotton crop and in part accounts for a 630,000-bale decline in West Africa’s expected output.” Australia’s crop was pegged at 5.5 million bales.
In its monthly Crop Production report, the USDA increased its estimate of U.S. corn and soybean crops by 1 percent, to 13.9 billion bushels of corn and 4.35 billion bushels of soybeans.