Opinion: On the West Texas High Plains, a farm recession from closing cotton gins eats away at rural economies

Part of a ginning business stands out on High Plains
of West Texas. (Floydada Co-op Gin photo)

A farm recession doesn't look like a Wall Street crash. It's quieter, deeper and far more difficult for an agriculturally-based community to recover from, writes Tony St. James in his opinion for RED TV. When a region's farms go under, their disappearance is followed by the loss of "the businesses that once processed, serviced, and supported the crop."

West Texas cotton gins that once flourished and pumped millions of dollars into the state's economy are struggling to survive drought and market volatility. "In 2022, extreme drought forced producers to abandon nearly 74% of planted acres, driving production to the lowest levels seen in decades," St. James explains. While production rebounded in 2023, the farm losses of 2022 were nearly impossible to balance.

After 2022, some farmers had to sell or close their gins. Their consolidation into another gin or complete closings cascaded down to all the equipment dealers, irrigation companies and trucking firms that depended on that gin for work and profits.

Location of Parmer County, Texas,
population 9,870 (Wikipedia map)

"In Parmer County, one cooperative gin has sold, another is unlikely to reopen, and only one large facility remains," St. James writes. "The cotton did not disappear. The infrastructure did. . . . This is what a farm recession looks like on Main Street."

From a state or national perspective, the loss and absorption of gins may not signal any crisis, but for towns centered on cotton, the loss of one or two gins can kill their rural economy.

"Cotton remains central to the Texas economy. . . . But rural infrastructure tends to thin faster than it rebuilds," St. James adds. To survive, some West Texas counties are faced with "rebuilding the backbone of the local economy."