The cotton industry in Australia is on track to produce about 4.6 million bales or over a million tons of fiber. Cotton prices are particularly attractive but plantings are likely to be significantly down due to water shortage. Next season there could be a crop of around 2.2 million bales, 50 per cent down on last year.

A lot of winter crop hasn’t gone in. The northern areas are hitting the last available date for planting cereals. So, some of that country may be put to summer crops, especially if there is rain in August. So sorghum and dry land cotton are on a lot of people’s minds.

Cotton production in the Murrumbidgee and Murray valleys of southern New South Wales has hit a record 8,00,000 bales, with 53 new growers joining the region’s existing cohort of 110 to grow a record area of 72,000 hectares. The average yield for this all-irrigated area was around 11 bales per hectare.

There are plenty of new growers sending cotton to the gins this year. The shift has been due largely to the high cost of irrigation water.When the price of water goes up, the margin is worse on rice, and that makes cotton look better, especially when the price of cotton is high.