Arizona growers produce more cotton per acre than U.S. average, despite heat, drought

USA Today

06-07-2025

Pinal County is among the top 1% of cotton-producing counties in the United States when it comes to yield, despite challenging conditions from extreme heat and water woes, according to a new analysis from the University of Arizona. La Paz and Maricopa counties also ranked high in the study.
Growers in Pinal County produced more pounds of cotton per acre than the national average, the report said, and across the state, cotton farming and ginning — separating the cotton fiber from the seeds — contributed $322 million to the state economy.
The presence and economic value of cotton farming today pale in comparison to the 1950s and 1980s, when six times more acres were planted across the state. But Arizona remains a top producer in the U.S., particularly for Pima cotton. That's one of the two kinds of cotton grown in the country, known for its softer and longer fibers.
Among the findings, UA researchers showed that in the last decades, Arizona growers have sharply reduced pesticide and water usage. From an average of nine applications of insecticides per acre in the 1990s, growers today average 0.58 applications per acre, and from 1984 to 2023, they produced 32% more cotton with the same amount of water.
"We know that we're using less water per acre, but I don't know if we had it on paper with data to back it up," said Jadee Rohner, executive director of the Arizona Cotton Growers Association.
The industry is going through harder times today because the costs of production have gone up while the price of the fiber is at a low.
"The price of cotton right now is what it was worth in 1980, but the price of a cotton picker in 1980 was $70,000. The price of a cotton picker today is $1.2 million," she added. Diesel, seed and wages have also gone up.
The price for the fiber would need to be higher for growers to pencil out costs.
"To have 60-cent cotton doesn't math."
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Food, fiber are 'a matter of national security'
The industry has been pushing for higher subsidies and price support from the federal government. Under President Donald Trump's tax and policy bill, reference prices — a benchmark price used to determine support payments — would go up by 14%, and up to 19% for crops like soybeans. Altogether, the proposal would pour $65.6 billion into a safety net program for a handful of crops, including cotton.
This increase in farm subsidies and other elements of the farm program would be the third-largest source of new spending, right behind defense spending, border security and immigration enforcement.
"It can become a matter of national security if we're dependent on foreign countries to provide all of our food and fiber. That puts us in a very weak situation," said Rohner about the importance of supporting commodity crops. The change in price support is not enough, she added, but it is a starting point.
Cotton production in the U.S. has a hard time competing with countries that have fewer environmental regulations, but Rohner believes that also makes it more valuable, particularly for the technology and education investments around it.
In Arizona, growers have the additional challenge of relying on scarce resources. While growers have improved water efficiency, it still takes about 4.2 acre-feet of water per acre to grow cotton. Alfalfa requires about 5 to 6 acre-feet of water.
In Pinal County, most growers rely on groundwater after losing their allocation to Colorado River water, nine years before the expected date. Some areas depend almost exclusively on water from the San Carlos Reservoir and have seen reduced allocations of 0.6 acre-feet of water per acre due to drought; it would take seven acres of land to grow even one acre of cotton.
A voluntary program to retire farmland and sell water credits to housing developers could also incentivize some growers to sell some of their land or retire. Rohner publicly supported the program and commended lawmakers for creating the program.
"I don't want them to sell their land," she said. "But at the end of the day, that's in the cards for some of them."
Clara Migoya covers agriculture and water issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to [e-mail].