Lubbock, Texas — Many tractors and other farm equipment are sitting idle across Texas as the cotton harvest season gets underway. Climate change is threatening the $7 billion industry.
“Never has it ever been this bad,” said Ricky Yantis, a fourth-generation farmer in west Texas.
The region produces more than a third of the nation’s cotton. Yantis has just 168 acres of healthy plants on his 6,000 acres — less than 3% of his land.
“Where our harvest nearly normally lasts a month, month and half, it will last a day,” he said.
Extreme drought and a sustained summer heatwave taking an unprecedented toll. Farmers like Yantis had to plow fields without irrigation because plants were burning up. Statewide, almost 70% of cotton crops were similarly abandoned.
Economists predict a $2 billion hit to Texas.
“Most of these towns — probably 75% to 80% — is derived from cotton,”…
