agriculture

Suhas Vyavhare and Blayne Reed Texas A&M AgriLife Extension With the growing season just around the corner, farmers are busy preparing fields and making tough decisions for 2016. Cotton, the crop often known as �white gold,� looks to have some difficulty bringing major economic incentives to the farmers this year. Commodity prices have been below production costs for the last couple of years and future market moves, or lack thereof, are suggesting prices will be about the same this year. This means 2016 is going to be another challenging economic year for cotton growers. Despite this, surveys indicate increased cotton acreage in Texas in 2016. The increase in projected cotton acreage is largely the result of similar and weaker market prices of most of the usual alternative crops to cotton (corn, sorghum, wheat).   The looming threat of sugarcane aphid is also likely to prompt some sorghum producers to opt out of sorghum production.   There are some improved expectations f...