Costs of Producing Upland Cotton in the United States, 1964

Excerpts from the report Summary: The total cost of producing the U.S. crop of upland cotton in 1964 was 28.4 cents per pound of lint. This total cost figure includes market rates of return to all inputs used. The total direct cost of producing cotton (this excludes payments to land and farm overhead items) was 21.6 cents per pound of lint. About 64 percent of U.S. cotton was produced at a total cost of less than 30 cents per pound of lint, whereas about 88 percent was produced at a direct cost of less than 30 cents per pound of lint. Thirty cents is a close approximation of the 29. 3 cents per pound of lint received by survey respondents in 1964. The 1964 costs reported in this study are the result of aggregation and analysis of data on production inputs and prices obtained from interviews of 5,200 cotton farmers in the 18 major cotton-producing regions. These costs are associated with an average yield of 540 pounds of lint per acre, which reflects generally favorable weather conditions in most of the 18 regions in 1964.