SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE COTTON PRODUCTION IN 2014/15

摘要

Cotton plantings for the Southern Hemisphere in 2014/15 season started in September 2014 and will continue through the start of 2015. The sowing season usually lags a few months behind the Northern Hemisphere so that markets have a much better sense of the size of the world cotton crop by the time sowing starts in the Southern Hemisphere. This allows producers in this part of the world to adjust plantings to changes in the market. While area in the Northern Hemisphere is responsive to world cotton prices during the previous season, area in the Southern Hemisphere tends to be more responsive to prices at the end of the last season, when the crop is marketed, and the start of the current season. Prices plummeted in the last two months of 2013/14 from90 cents/lb to 80 cents/lb. In the first few months of 2014/15, internationalprices have continued to fall and are now less than 70 cents/lb. This season follows a very similar trend to prices in 2012/13, when prices fell from 100 cents/lb in spring 2012 to 83 cents/ lb at the end of the season, and area fell 31% to 3.2 million hectares. While current prices are above the long-term average price for cotton, rising productions costs around the world make lower prices less viable for many growers. In the last ten years, the world average net cost to produce one kilogram of cottonlint has increased by 83% to US$1.S/kg (US$0.68/ lb), which increase has been mainly caused by rising costs of inputs, labor for weeding and harvesting, and ginning.