Moneda®

Since June 1st cotton prices have dipped to $.69 a pound and have floated around the low $.70’s since then. These prices are the same that cotton traded at 10 years ago on average. Since 2014 the dollar in your pocket has lost 33% of its value, so at a bare minimum cotton prices should be $.93 a pound. Since 2014 input cost per acre for cotton farms in Georgia have gone from $700 to $875 (a 25% increase) on irrigated crop land. We’ve also had a historically dry Summer so far after a very wet Spring which caused many farmers to replant, plant late, or have to drastically change what they did plant. This did nothing but increase input costs and decrease potential yields. A new 6 row cotton picker (of which you can now only buy from one company: John Deere) costs over $1.1 million. That same cotton picker would have been $600,000 a decade ago. In ten years, that single piece of equipment, that is essential to cotton farming, has almost doubled. The USDA predicts US cotton textile mill production to hit a 140+ year low. This means we as Americans today will add value to as much cotton as people in 1880 did. The US population in 1880 was slightly over 50 million. In 2024 it has increased over 6 fold to 330 million. Unfortunately, we don’t have the infrastructure to even begin to produce all the clothes Americans need. We’d rather let other countries buy our cotton at bottom dollar, add value to it, and then sell it back to us. Why isn’t cotton textile production higher? Why aren’t cotton prices higher? Why are small businesses and farmers struggling to make ends meet? This is all connected in a concerning way that takes more than a Facebook post to explain. But in short, when you don’t control who, where, and how your fiber is manufactured, it all goes down hill from there. That’s why we do what we do at Magnolia Loom. We pay on average 20% more per pound for cotton. Then move that cotton in a supply chain that never leaves Georgia and the Carolina’s. We support small businesses because they struggle just like we do, but find pride in knowing they help so many. We try to help move the needle little by little everyday. Next time you see a farmer, tell them thank you. This year is one of the hardest this generation of farmers may ever see. Special thanks to John Douglas Newton for giving me real life data and for being one of our cotton farmers!

Let us not seek the #Republican answer, or the #Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future. - John F. Kennedy #WeThePeople #BeAmerican #JFK