South Texas farmers face financial strain as cotton sales stall amid international trade uncertainty.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Farmers in South Texas are facing delays in selling their crop this season, as uncertainty over international trade deals puts sales on hold and adds financial pressure.
Cotton is a staple crop in South Texas and one that usually brings in big returns. But this year, even after one of the best harvests, much of it is still sitting in the fields.
Farmer Bobby Nedbalek said he’s waiting for a market that just isn’t moving.
“Our biggest problem now is that the customers that normally buy the cotton, from the United States have been buying those cotton supply, needs from other countries, Brazil, Venezuela, and in fact, Africa,” Nedbalek said. “They will continue to buy it from the lowest price market that they can get into, and we just can’t compete with the low market price that other countries sell.”
Other farmers feeling the effects are brothers Marvin and Danny Beyer whose family has been farming for generations.
“There’s no demand for cotton. That is, nobody seems to want to buy it. I know the cotton around here is gone to the warehouses and my understanding is it’s sitting there. There’s very few orders being placed,” Beyer said.
Across South Texas, cotton gins are jammed with unsold bales as farmers face a stalled market. At the Edcot Co-op Gin, thousands of bales are stacked up, operator Daniel Luehrs said even when sales happen, low prices leave little profit.
“It is a huge inconvenience to have to wait and interruption of their cash flow that won’t stop their farming operation but hinders it so that they can’t start preparing for next year because once they’re done with harvest, preparing the land for next year starts, so we’re already going through and plowing and getting the fields ready, getting ready to start putting out fertilizer and all that stuff – is again, additional costs where you still have last year’s crop waiting,” Luehrs said.
Luehrs said that wait could last for weeks or even months. As the cotton piles up, so do the bills.
“So as soon as we get through harvesting we start preparing for the next year’s crop and in most cases, we’ve got some kind of an obligation to a landlord who owns the land that we farm and we have to pay them for next year’s rent,” Nedbalek said. “And that makes it a real cost price squeeze on the farm because they want to get their money and we promised to pay them in by the end of September. And we’re gonna have to borrow some money to or make arrangements for some money to get through with those expenses of cleaning up and plowing the land and paying the rent for the next year’s crop to the landowners.”
Until the market opens up, these cotton bales may remain in storage. A reminder of a strong harvest with nowhere to go.
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