{"id":3630,"date":"2024-09-18T13:17:53","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T18:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agrilife.org\/agecon\/?p=3630"},"modified":"2024-09-18T13:17:53","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T18:17:53","slug":"to-harvest-or-not-to-harvest-cotton-harvest-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrilife.org\/agecon\/to-harvest-or-not-to-harvest-cotton-harvest-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"To Harvest or Not to Harvest? Cotton Harvest Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cotton harvest on Oct. 20, 2021. (Courtney Sacco\/Texas A&M AgriLife Marketing and Communications)<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s almost time for producers to begin harvesting cotton in this part of the state.\u00a0 Today, we look at the decision to harvest low-yielding fields and discuss the costs and benefits of doing so.\u00a0 We also present a tool to help producers evaluate the profitability of harvesting cotton from low-yielding fields.<\/p>\n

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Should You Harvest That Field?<\/h3>\n

As an economic decision, the question of whether to harvest a field is not complicated.\u00a0 A field should only be harvested if the revenue it produces is greater than the harvest cost.\u00a0 The challenge is to identify the correct costs to consider.<\/p>\n

Producers should consider any costs associated with planting and growing a crop as sunk costs at harvest time. \u00a0These costs have been incurred and are not recoverable, so they should not influence the harvest decision.\u00a0 Producers should also ignore any fixed costs associated with harvesting equipment, such as depreciation and interest payments on loans. \u00a0These costs must be paid and do not change, even if nothing is harvested.<\/p>\n

The harvest decision, therefore, should focus on the variable costs associated with harvesting a field.\u00a0 The extension enterprise budgets<\/a> for cotton in Districts 1 and 2 identify three such costs.\u00a0 These are stripping and module building, ginning, and harvest aid applications.\u00a0 If the revenue produced by a field is greater than the sum of these costs, it makes economic sense to harvest the field.<\/p>\n

A Tool to Help with the Decision<\/h3>\n

To help producers evaluate harvest profitability, economists with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service have created a harvest decision budget tool<\/a>. \u00a0The tool itself is a spreadsheet that calculates the revenue, harvest cost, and net income from harvesting a field.<\/p>\n

To use the tool, a producer inputs information into the blue shaded cells in the spreadsheet.\u00a0 For example, suppose I have 100 acres of cotton that will only yield 75 pounds of cotton lint per acre.\u00a0 Furthermore, I have the following expectations about the cotton price at harvest and harvest costs:<\/p>\n