Much of Texas Declared a Natural Disaster Area
June 29, 2011 In terms of sheer size, Texas is one of the largest of the 50 U.S. states. But the area isn’t the only thing that’s supersized; it’s a common saying that “Everything is bigger in Texas.”
Unfortunately, “everything” includes natural disasters like droughts … and Texas is going through a whopper of a drought right now. In fact, the lack of rain has become so severe that 213 of the 254 counties in Texas have been declared natural disaster areas. Much to the disappointment of the cotton industry, Lubbock and the South Plains are included in those disaster areas.
The impact of the drought is not known yet, but it could be disastrous for the U.S. crop – and thus for some of the world’s top fiber consumers that rely on imports to feed their textile mills. Texas supplies about half of the U.S. cotton crop each year, so a down year in Texas is a virtual guarantee that the American crop will be down, too.
While no one is happy about blasted crops, the USDA’s natural disaster declaration is a tremendously important event for Texas farmers. Once declared a natural disaster area, growers in those counties become eligible for low-interest emergency loans, as long as they file their applications within eight months of the disaster declaration (which came on June 24).
Cotton growers in the affected regions are also expected to file a massive number of crop insurance claims this season due to the bone-dry weather. Sources say that most farmers will receive 100 percent of their insurance policy’s value because virtually nothing is growing in the barren fields – not even weeds.
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