Cotton Growers Yet Another Victim Of Storm 2006
FABENS, Tx. – While Storm 2006 flooded homes, ruined businesses and damagedthe area’sinfrastructure, farmers in the Upper andLower Valley were also hard-hit.
Regardless of the farmland’s location in the Borderland, the problem is the same: damaged cotton crops.
The main problem is that cotton needs hot temperatures to grow the largebulbs. During the days of incessant rain,nothing grew. It was simply too cool and wet for the so-called fruit to grow.
Officialstell ABC-7 that due to the cooler temperatures and excess moisture from Storm 2006 cotton farmers are looking at loosing up to 25% of their crop.Making the loss even bigger, the fact thatcotton farmers only get paid once a year.
Fabens-area farmer John Spence tells ABC-7,”Well we get paid when we harvest our and basically we have to depend on that so we can budge through out the year and pay for our expenses…well you’ll just have to budget with less money, you just, you get by, you get by.”
Mr. Spence adds that they are hoping the area don’t see very much rain over the next couple of weeks so they can get as much “fruit” as they can from the plants before picking season in mid-October.
