Cotton Ginning Charges, Harvesting Practices, and Selected Marketing Costs,1994/95 Season

摘要

The average charge for saw-ginning and wrapping a 480-pound net-weight bale ofcotton in the United States fell to $42.37 per bale in 1994/95 from $43.28 in 1993/94. A total of 1,300 active cotton gins operated in the 14 major cotton-producing States in 1994/95, down from 1,357 a year earlier. Despite a nearly 22-percent in U.S. cotton production in 1994/95, lower gin numbers reflect the long-term trend fewer but larger cotton gins. Average volume processed per gin increased from 11,483 bales in 1993/94 to 14,565 bales in 1994/95. The share of the 1994/95 cotton crop harvested by machine-picking was 76 percent, machine-stripping, 23 percent, and machine-scrapping (gleaning from the ground), 1 percent. A record 78 percent of the U.S. cotton crop was ginned from modules in 1994/95, a 4-percentage-point rise above 1993/94. The average volume of harvested seed cotton needed to yeild a 480-pound net-weight bale of lint was 1,444 pounds for machine-picking, 2,153 pounds for machine-stripping, and 1,650 pounds for machine-scrapping (data for machine-scrapping were reported from only Arizona