Cotton is one of Mississippi’s top row crops, along with soybeans and corn. However, heavy rains this spring washed away the strength of this year’s potential cotton output.
Will Maples is a professor of Agricultural Economics with the Mississippi State University Extension Service.
Shamira Muhammad
Cotton farmers face challenges
“This year's cotton crop, it got off to a rough start,” he said. “We had a very wet spring, a lot of rain throughout planting season that put a lot of folks behind across the state, really.”
There is also far fewer acreage being used for cotton crops in Mississippi this year.
“We are down this year compared to last year, by a good bit,” Maples said. “Last year, we planted like 520,000 acres. This year, we've planted 330,000 acres. So across the board, it's gonna be a smaller crop in the state.”
Even crops that managed to get planted weren’t immune to challenges. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has rated only 6% of Mississippi's 2025 cotton crop as excellent in condition.
Maples says the high costs associated with planting cotton is also causing concern.
“If you compare cotton to corn and soybeans, it's already the most expensive crop to grow,” he said. “With the rise in machinery cost and fertilizer, and just chemical inputs, this year was higher than last year, which has been higher than the last two or three years.”
Although the economic conditions around cotton have been precarious for some time, Maples says the added pressure of tariffs have introduced even more uncertainty into the industry.
“Cotton really would benefit if we can get a deal worked out with China,” he said. “One positive, though, is we've already signed a trade deal with Vietnam, who is also another large consumer of U.S. cotton.”
Many Mississippi cotton farmers could face negative profit margins this year. Maples says there’s growing worry in the industry. So far, federal relief programs have not been able to offset all of the costs incurred by cotton farmers.
“There is general concern out in the countryside because last year was not great, this year's been bad, and if next year is also bad, it's really going to get some folks worrying about the long-term health of our farm economy,” Maples said.