COTTON: Turnabout

Washington, which arbitrarily cut cotton acreage 20% only a year ago, abruptly changed its policy. Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan, who had once loudly pleaded with farmers to stop raising cotton and diversify their crops, last week asked them to increase cotton production as much as possible. To help them out, Brannan took off all planting and marketing controls on cotton—which was already selling at its highest price in 30 years.

The turnabout was caused by an impending worldwide cotton shortage—and the leanest U.S. cotton crop in four years. Bugs, bad weather and the cut in acreage allotments under the support program had slashed the U.S. crop this year to an estimated 9,869,000 bales from 16,128,000 bales in 1949. Brannan hoped that production could be stepped up again to 16 million bales in 1951. But wiping out controls removed only one obstacle; there were plenty more.

Biggest was the labor shortage. Southern farm labor has been steadily streaming north to Chicago and Detroit for factory jobs. Most farmers cannot harvest even a normal crop without the help of out-of-area labor, much less the 11 million additional acres they will have to plant to reach Brannan’s goal.

Even if farmers think they can solve their labor problem by importing migrant workers from Mexico (a process tangled in red tape) and by mechanization, many of them may still be reluctant to expand cotton acreage. Before they plow up their pastures and go back to the feast & famine dangers of cotton, farmers will want assurance that it will pay in the long run, that quotas won’t be clamped on again next year. Warned the Atlanta Constitution: “[Farmers] would do well to think . . . carefully before giving up in favor of the lure of quick cotton profits. For big profits, even at 41-cent cotton, may turn out to be a mirage for many.”

Brannan might also have difficulty getting farmers to appreciate the shortage. He is still collecting fines (more than $500,000 to date) from farmers who exceeded their 1950 marketing quotas. Brannan argued that if fines are suspended now, farmers who had stayed within their limits would be penalized, while those who went over their legal quotas would profit.

Faced by all these obstacles, the Government moved last week to protect dwindling U.S. cotton reserves—estimated to be only 500,000 bales more than domestic and foreign demand—until next year’s crop is in. The Government will require licenses for all exports, except to Canada, will allow none for shipments behind the Iron Curtain.