The June World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates from the U.S Department of Agriculture contains a paradox policymakers might want to note: Domestic stocks of unsold cotton continue to sit on the sluggish market while winter wheat production is now forecast to be the lowest since 1957.
Those two facts raise an interesting question: Why are today’s farm programs heavily skewed to support cotton, a crop we can’t give away, while wheat, a principal food grain and feed grain the world over, continues to lose planted acreage and production?
The answer matters because in late May Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced yet another subsidy program for cotton – this one dubbed the “Great American Cotton Plan” – for America’s ever-fewer, ever-larger cotton farmers while wheat farmers struggle to compete with farm bill-favored corn and soybean growers for High Plains acres and water.
To add woe to that worry, wheat growers are watching their crops evaporate in a widespread drought that USDA estimates will trim yields to the bone. According to Reuters, this year’s “production of hard red winter wheat, the largest variety grown” will “fall to 496 million bushels … well below last year’s 840-million-bushel crop.”
The reason is climate change. Estimates show that 36% of Nebraska’s drought-hammered wheat acres will be abandoned while states like Texas could see wheat abandonment top 70%.
Despite fewer acres and today’s climate-clipped yields, America will not run short of wheat anytime soon. We will still produce enough to export about one-half of our production (775 million bushels in 2026-27, according to USDA) while retaining an ample reserve of an estimated 744 million bushels.
Meanwhile, cotton farmers are getting sheared in a worldwide fiber market that’s now 70% synthetic. The not-natural takeover is so complete that even the National Cotton Council concedes U.S. cotton growers “are now in their fifth year of negative returns.”
But that’s not news; American cotton usage has been declining since Ronald Reagan was president. This year’s WASDE shows how far: Of the estimated 13.3 million, 480-pound bales produced in 2026, 12.3 million will be exported and only 1.6 million will be used by U.S. mills.
Worse, 3.7 million bales from previous years will be “carried over” into the next crop year to continue to damper farm prices, estimated to be a thin 73 cents per pound in 2026-27.
The Trump administration’s new “Great American Cotton Plan” offers several policy tools it says will expand both U.S. and foreign use of American cotton. Most, however, appear to defy economic gravity.
For example, explained Farm Journal, “The plan … increases payments through the Economic Assistance of Textile Mills program from 3 cents to 5 cents per pound of cotton processed, a move aimed at improving profitability for domestic mills and processors.”
While that sounds enticing, it faces a gear-grinding climb: “According to USDA, the number of cotton gins in the United States has fallen from 2,254 in 1980 to just 446 today, while domestic manufacturing capacity has steadily shrunk over the last two decades.”
Other aspects of the ” Great American Cotton Plan ” include an effort to make “U.S. cotton cheaper … for brands to use – even if manufacturing happens overseas” and “expand” already generous “crop insurance tools.”
So, USDA believes it can grow farmer profits by making “U.S. cotton cheaper … overseas”? If you believe that I have some “tariff-enhanced” soybeans to sell you.
Like most of the ideas from this USDA, Rollins offered no cost estimate of the plan nor if it would be included in the still-pending farm bill called the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.
Most notably, she also didn’t offer struggling wheat farmers – who actually grow food – any plan whatsoever to rebuild their shattered market.
This article originally appeared on Farmers Advance: Good luck eating that cotton sandwich
Reporting by Alan Guebert, Farmers’ Advance / Farmers Advance
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Alan Guebert, Farmers' Advance | USA TODAY Network
