Caught On Cotton: Texas Agriculture Tangled in Climate Challenges
This article was written by Reid Trussler, a student in my ENVECON 161 class this semester. One of the class assignments is to write a blog on environmental, climate, or energy challenges related to agriculture. I chose the two best submissions to publish here (it was hard to choose only two because there were so many excellent ones). Click here to read the first one.
Reid is a 3rd year undergraduate at Cal double majoring in Computer Science and Environmental Economics & Policy, with a minor in Data Science. She’s passionate about exploring environmental policy from an analytical perspective, and she hopes to pursue an honors research project next year.
“Wow, you must love the weather up here!”— this is the fairly consistent initial reaction of fellow UC Berkeley students upon learning that I am originally from Austin, Texas. By “the weather up here”, they are referring to the pleasantly mild, albeit occasionally rainy, Bay Area climate that never seems to stray that far from 65°. This, like many aspects of life in California, poses a stark contrast to Texas. From Tatooine-esque summers reaching temperatures in the 100-teens to winters dotted with abrupt freezes and snowstorms, the increasingly extreme climate of Texas is not always easy to love … a sentiment that the state’s cotton farmers likely feel now more than ever.
Supplying about 40% of the United State’s cotton annually, Texas is the nation’s leading producer of this vital commodity by a large margin — that is, about 4 million bales per year, according to the graph below from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
With a total export valuation of around $1.7 billion in the 2020 marketing year — the most out of any state in the US, which exports 35% of the world’s cotton — this cash crop is a power player in Texas’ agricultural economy, as highlighted in the state government report “Agriculture Industry Grows Texas”. Cotton impressively generated the 4th largest cash receipts for the state in 2021, behind cattle, dairy, and broilers. Boasting robust agricultural infrastructure and a favorable climate for cotton cultivation, Texas has historically seen substantial gains from exporting this commodity. However, with intense droughts and extreme weather conditions becoming ever more prevalent, the state is vulnerable to substantial losses, too.
The majority of Texas’ cotton production occurs in the High Plains region. This area, which is located in the state’s panhandle, is one of many regions within the span of Texas to South Dakota that relies heavily on the Ogallala Aquifer (also known as the High Plains Aquifer) for irrigation.
The supply of groundwater in the aquifer is rapidly depleting, largely due to excessive pumping and lack of recharge. A report on the High Plains Aquifer’s changing groundwater levels by the United States Geological Survey revealed a ~275 million acre-feet decrease in the amount of recoverable water in storage from 1950 (before irrigation development) to 2015. Furthermore, as depicted in the graph below, a vast majority of this recoverable water depletion– over 150 million acre-feet, to be specific– occurred in Texas.
The maps below illustrate the distribution of cotton bales produced throughout Texas counties in 2022 and water-level changes in the Ogallala Aquifer between ~1950-2015. When comparing these maps side by side with a specific focus on Texas, declines in the aquifer’s water levels appear to be concentrated in counties with higher cotton production, indicating reliance on the aquifer for irrigation.
On top of groundwater depletion, the increasing prevalence and intensity of droughts has generated immense uncertainty surrounding future cotton yields. Accounting for ~10% of global agricultural water use, cotton is a water intensive crop that is susceptible to drought, as highlighted by the H2O Team at H2O Global News. In 2022, for instance, abnormally dry conditions led to a loss of 74% of Texas cotton crop, costing the state around $2 billion. This article in Inside Climate News emphasizes that farmers have received more insurance payouts for severe weather in recent years, filing $1.92 billion in drought claims in 2022, as illustrated below.
A well-meaning Texas cotton industry enthusiast might argue that farmers could mitigate this issue to some extent by planting drought resistant cotton (which, by the way, is already fairly tolerant of dry conditions without genetic modification) or switching to drip irrigation. This isn’t a bad suggestion, in fact it’s a pretty good one, but it does not account for another climate predicament plaguing cotton farmers: natural disasters.
As global temperatures have warmed, Texas has experienced increased flooding due to hurricanes and severe thunderstorms as well as — although it may seem unintuitive — unseasonal freezes. In Tyson Raper’s interview of Dr. Seth Byrd, Dr. Byrd explains that freezes, such as Winter Storm Uri 2021, can significantly impact the health of cotton by damaging the bolls and leaves of the plant. When a cotton boll does not open properly due to frost, it is unharvestable; on a large scale, this means detrimentally less revenue during that harvest cycle. Thus, farmers are faced with the nearly impossible task of maximizing their growing season while planning for unplannable freezes.
Increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather conditions have already cost the Texas cotton industry billions. Will farmers adapt, striving to retain the state’s status as the leading cotton producer, or will they attempt to shift operations elsewhere? Implementing water-conscious irrigation methods could relieve some negative economic drought impact, but the tradeoff of installing these systems might not be worthwhile or feasible for producers. Even with adaptations, will the state continue to economically gain from cotton production on the same scale? Could Texas policy makers be incentivized to subsidize crops that are less susceptible to harsh weather conditions?
In any case, it appears that we are “caught on” the edge of a major shift in this industry.
Hi Aaron, this is a great article, and of interest to an international audience. For the love of all that is holy, can we please encourage (enforce?) the use of metric units as well as your “freedom units”, perhaps in brackets? Acre feet hurts my brain. Best, Mark