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When Cotton’s No Longer King Story and Photos BY JUDSON DRENNAN The Carolina Reporter Wre live from one year to the next. We don’t know if we ’re going to be able to farm another year. We started out in debt this year, and the way it looks, we’re going to end in debt.... I heard my husband make this comment the other day, you know he said, ‘ You think God’s looking down and help ing you, and sometimes as a farmer, you almost want to question where God is.”... - Christine Bickley, cotton farmer When Christine Bickley married a cotton farmer, she understood the hours were long, the pay was low and the work was hard. But she knew that come harvest, there would be money to square up debts. And in good times, there would be enough left over to put a little in the bank. But times aren’t good. This will be the Bickleys’ third bad harvest in as many years. And with the price of cotton down at 50-cents-a-pound from its average of 70 cents, Bickley is won dering if there will even be a harvest next year. mces are Killing us. wun pnces like they are right now, we won’t even break even,” she said. Bickley is the S.C. chairwoman of the National Cotton Wbmen’s Com mittee, an advocate group for Amer ican cotton products. She and her hus band, Kenneth, farm 900 acres of cotton in Orangeburg and Calhoun counties with their daughter and son in-law. Much of the land they farm used to belong to Kenneth’s father, but some they rent from friends and neighbors. Bickley said it takes her $450 an acre to grow unirrigated cotton, and each acre has to produce one-and-a half to two bails of cotton to break even; irrigated cotton takes at least two bails to break even. But Bickley doesn’t expect she will get two-thirds of what she needs from her irri gated fields. And some of her unirrigated fields have been nearly destroyed by the drought. But the drought isn’t the only thing hurting 11C1 WUUII. “Wfe’re having problems with seed rot, too. Everybody’s panicky about seed rot. It’s a disease where the cot ton bolls rot before they are ready for harvest. We have white flies like you would not believe. These elements are tearing up the irrigated cotton. Cot ton likes heat, but it does not like 'extreme heat. So even if it is irrigat ed, it’s struggling,” she said. And the bank isn’t far behind. Bickley said she used to get loans on her name alone, but for the past two years, she and her husband have had to mortgage everything they own. They’re still trying to pay off a loan taken out after a bad harvest in 1977, and it looks like this year’s har vest will put them further in debt. She said that as the price of cotton falls, so do her hopes of keeping the farm another year. ; “It is scary to know that come January, the bank might sell us out be cause we can’t make ouf payments. Yet we have worked all these years paying all this interest to the'banks,” she said. “What’s going to happen to this country if the American people don’t wake up and stand up for farmers? The average American will tell you they don’t care because it’s not affecting them. But that’s so stupid. Everybody in the United States is affected if the farmers go out. “I mean, I could cry, I could sit down and cry because I hear people right here in my own hometown that will look at me and they’ll say, ‘You chose what you wanted to do in life, and if you don’t like it, get out of it.’ “But how do you quit? You’ve got so much investment in it. You’ve got the love of the land. It’s something that’s instilled in you. It’s something you’ve done all your life. How do you quit?” Lowder Farm Cotton’s knee-high this year, and that worries Clayton Lowder. Lowder is chairman of the S.C Cotton Board. He and his brother farm 750 acres in Oswego. None of it is ir rigated. They also have a feed-and seed store and a cotton gin that process es about 3,000 acres of cotton from their neighbors’ farms. Not all of Lowder’s cotton is knee high. The best of it comes up to his waist. He said all of it should be up to his chest by now. As Lowder walked through his rows of cotton, he stomped down stalks of pigweed, a fast-growing weed re sistant to chemicals that soaks up what rain does fall. He stooped down, looked at one of the cotton plants and shook his head. His dog, Rebel, watched him from the back of the truck. “Ridin’ by, this cotton looks fan tastic, but look at this,” he said, point ing to small, unopened bolls on the branches of one of the taller plants. “The picker’s not gonna get this. And even if it did, these aren’t gonna amount to much of noth ing.” He said the bolls were on ly one-half to two-thirds the size they should be, and the fibers weren’t going to be long enough to bring a good price at market. He said much of the cotton was ikuu iucm.u, u vuuuii use to describe cotton that doesn ’t get enough water to mature properly. Hard-locked cotton has low-quality, short fibers, and isn’t easily harvested by the cotton-picking machinery. “Believe it or not, I think I’m the only one around here that is optimistic, and by that I mean I think we’ll get 400 to 500 pounds of cotton an acre,” he said. But Lowder said even if he gets 500 pounds of cotton, he’ll still lose $150 an acre. “The other day, a friend of mine asked me, ‘How much cotton you got planted?’ and I said, ‘Too much,’ ‘cause if I hadn’t planted any, we would on ly had to pay rent on the land. Last year, I broke even. This year’s gonna hurt real bad,” he said. Not only does Lowder plan to take a hit in the fields, he said he ex pects his gin will only have about half the business of a normal year. He said all the cotton farmers in his area have South Carolina Cotton I S C'« highest cotton-producrig counties <aoe the largest drou^t problems | Ann Kennedy The Carolina Reporter i._i i_i_i _ *_ been devastated by the drought, and a ’ few might not bother harvesting some fields. “Farmers are losing money on this (drought),” he said. “I’m getting con cerned not only about the cotton farmer, but about all farmers after this year and last year. I don’t rightly know what I’m going to do.” Hard Times Both Lowder and Bickley said this year’s drought was looking like the last of many straws for cotton farm ers. “The drought’s been terrible. Ter rible,” Bickley said. They said several years of bad har vests have put manv farmers in their areas in debt, and banks are getting more and more hesitant to lend mon ey. Bickley said the bank her fami ly had done business with for gener ations finally turned her down this year. They had to turn to another lend ing institution for the money to plant crops. “Farmers built the banks in this country, and now they want to tell us that they don’t want to lend us mon ey. It’s not fair to the farmers. And what are we going to do when we can’t get a loan anymore?” she said. Lowder and Bickley said the on ly way to keep cotton farmers from losing their farms is for the govern ment to make laws protecting the U.S. market from foreign cotton. Lowder is hoping for relief in the form of a program called Step Two. Step Two is a bill under consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives that would restrict the inflow of for eign cotton while strengthening prices at home. “Somebody sets our prices for us. We have no say on our prices. And that’s wrong. We should be able to get a fair price for our product,” Lowder said. Bickley said a major factor dri ving the price of domestic cotton down is cheaply produced foreign cotton. She said strict regulations protecting labor and the environment in the Unit ed States keep the price of Ameri can cotton from being competitive with cotton from other countries. For example, she said, Mexican cotton can be produced more cheaply in part be cause many Mexican farmers haven’t invested in laige farm machinery. In Mexico, farm labor is cheaper because Mexico has no laws requiring farm ers to pay a minimum wage to its cot ton pickers. Bickley said this inexpensive cot ton is imported into the United States, devaluing domestic cotton. “I would say that if we don’t get the price of the tariffs on import cot ton up, they’re just gonna flood this country. They’re flooding this coun try now,” she said. She said many retailers would rather buy products made with cheap er foreign cotton because it gives a larger profit margin. “They love imports because they can buy them cheap, but they don’t sell them cheap. They’ve got such a markup on these clothes, and it’s not fair. It is not fair that a person can order something and make a killing on it when the American fanner is go ing broke,” Bickley said. “I mean, somebody’s got to get their priorities straight.” Clayton Lowder farms 750 acres of cotton in Oswego. This year's drought could cause him to loss $150 an acre. He said this field should be up to his chest by now, but severe drought has stunted its growth. Christine Bickley said this is her worst field, which is almost not worth harvesting. Three years of bad harvests have caused Bickley, like many South Carolina fanners, to wonder if her farm can last another year. ; Briefs ■ City Council The Columbia City Council meets the first and third Wednesdays of each month at the City Hall Council Chambers, third floor. 1737 Main St. ■ County Council The Richland County Council meets the first and third Tuesdays of each month at the County Administration Building, 2020 Hampton St. ■ State Fair comes to Columbia The State Fair will run through Oct. 17 at the S.C. Fairgrounds. For more information about the following events or any other events, call 799-3387. • Today - Judging and competitive events; free state shows; The Tempta tions, 7:30 p.m. • Saturday - Judging and competi tive events; free stage shows; 38 Spe cial, 7:30 p.m. • Sunday - Free stage shows, 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 8:30 p.m.; The Oak Ridge Boys, 4:30 p.m. • Monday - Judging and competi tive events, 10 a.m. to noon, noon to 9 p.m.; free stage shows, 10 a.m., 10:30 p.m., 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., every half hour from 3 to 8:30 p.m.; Alaba ma, 7:30 p.m. ■ Antique show An antique show will be held through Sunday at the Columbiana Centre. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Saturday, 1:30 to 6 p.m. Sunday. All types of antiques, collectibles and crystal repair. Free. For more information, call 781-1000. ■ Charlie Glasgow Golf Tournament The Ronald McDonald House of Columbia will hold the sixth annual Charlie Glasgow Memorial Golf Tour nament on Monday at The University Club in Blythewood. The format is Captain's Choice, with a shotgun start at noon. The tour nament will end with dinner and a silent auction. Anyone can participate by being a sponsor, entering a team, donating an item to the silent auction or bid ding on an auction item. For more information, call the Ronald McDonald House at 254 3181. % Hie Carolina Reporter Publisher Ronald Farrar Reporters Allison Aiken Jessica Barfield Gina DeMillo Kristin Freestate Ann Kennedy Israel Kloss Kate Maxwell Todd Money Noelle Orr Jacquelyn Poston Jeff Stensland Adrienne Thompson Managing Editors Judson Drennan Jeff Romig Editors Shana Bowman David Cloninger _ Rebecca Cronican Ashley Mathias Ryan Mosier Cara Pellatt Faculty Advisers Scott Farrand Keith Kenney Pat McNeely Henry Price Jennifer Wood The Carolina Reporter senior semester students pro vide The Gamecock with week ly Metro & State coverage. For Metro & State news tips, please call (803) 777-3307 or (803) 777-3248. To fax tips, please call (803) 777-4103. Letters to the editor regarding Metro & State coverage should be directed to The Gamecock, RH 333, or gcked@sc.edu. The Carolina Reporter Online can be found on the World Wide Web at www.jour.sc.edu/reporter/home.html