Where good times are not for cotton.

• Position: Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Blake Brown is a professor of agricultural economics at N. C. State, where he earned his doctorate in 1991. A former agricultural extension agent, he's a specialist in the economics of cotton, which has lately been booming in North Carolina. BNC caught up with Brown by phone in San Antonio, where he was attending the Beltwide Cotton Conference.

BNC: Tobacco quotas are down 53%. Hogs are in trouble. Is cotton the next king of Tar Heel agriculture?

Brown: Had it not been for Hurricane Floyd, 1999 would have been the largest cotton crop in state history, beating out 1926. Acreage will likely increase in 2000. That's happening despite cotton being in a big price slump right now. It remains profitable only because of the federal loan-deficiency payment program. When the world price is below the U.S. price, farmers get payments. That's adding 20 cents a pound to the price. If a farmer is getting 50 cents in the marketplace, he can get 20 cents a pound from the government. North Carolina farmers can make money at that level. Their break-even point is 60 cents to 65 cents.

What's killing prices?

China. They can screw up the markets because they jump in and out. It grows a lot of cotton, but it isn't as good quality as ours. So in the mid-'90s, the mills there were buying U.S. cotton, and that led to stockpiles of their cotton. In 1998, the Chinese government restricted imports to force them to use the stockpiles. That slashed our exports from 7 million bales a year to 3 million to 4 million. In 1998, a drought devastated Texas' crop, which compensated for the lack of Chinese demand. But in '99, Texas recovered, and we had an oversupply. Prices dropped from around 70 cents a pound to around 70 cents a pound -- the lowest level since the 1980s.

Why aren't farmers switching to other crops such as soybeans and corn?

Those prices are depressed now, too. The China debacle is a temporary slump, and farmers know that. Prices will cycle back as China's stocks come down. And because of the loan-deficiency payments, cotton is still a good crop.

And North Carolina producers have gotten more competitive, right?

Yeah, we're a low-cost producer, as opposed to the traditional Mississippi Delta area. Texas is No. 1. California and Georgia vie for second place. We're right behind them.

What put us ahead of the Delta?

The boll weevil eradication program -- the grandfather of that is Marshall Grant, a cotton grower in Northampton County. The boll weevil caused the...