Cotton producers from the Mid-South and Southeast have spent the last week learning more about cotton production in other parts of the country.
Gary Dyksterhouse of Greenwood, Mississippi, took part in the National Cotton Council of America’s 2024 Producer Information Exchange program. “There are always kind of immediate pressures as a grower as far as what varieties you choose, growing the crop, what choices are you making on a day-to-day basis,” he says. “But then the truth of the matter is the profitability of the entire industry as a whole is what we need to continue to invest in.”
He tells Brownfield the shared knowledge helps ensure the long-term viability of the cotton industry. “So that the macro economy of cotton is healthy and whole,” he says. “So that they’re not burdensome regulations that don’t make sense, that are affecting the cotton growing in a negative way.”
Dyksterhouse says producers had a lot of conversations about the availability of crop protection tools, like dicamba, for the next growing season. “It’s already difficult enough to grow a cotton crop,” he says. “It’s even more difficult to grow a cotton crop for a profit when you start taking away tools to fight back the competition for that cotton. It hurts both the economics and the operation of the average cotton farmer.”
In this exchange, Mid-South and Southeast cotton producers visited the San Joaquin Valley in California. This coming week, producers from Arizona, California, and Texas will observe operations in Georgia.