date:May 14, 2013
ns on credit sales to Cuba hurting U.S. exports. That's a huge natural market for the United States, Murphy said.
As U.S. domestic cotton milling has fallen to foreign competition, the cotton industry has become more dependent on exports to China, India, and Pakistan. Some 80% of the U.S. crop is now exported. China also has large stocks of its own cotton in storage.
In Mississippi, cotton remains an important crop, but growers there are planting 270,000 acres, just over half as much as last yea