This year, American cotton mills will process the least cotton since 1885. The US Department of Agriculture released a forecast on Monday mentioning that the US textile mills will feed just 1.74 million bales of cotton into their machines in the 2023-2024 marketing year that ends in July, the slowest rate in 139 years. This is about 15% less than last year and much lower than the agency’s prior forecast.

The factories which convert cotton fibers into yarn and fabric are among the last supporters of the textile industry in the country after years of increasing competition from inexpensive overseas production and synthetic materials. A brief recovery was made by mills in the 1990s when trade deals lifted the US to export yarn and fabric to be turned into clothes in other countries before being sent back and sold.

US mill use has “just disappeared,” said Peter Egli, the director of risk management at Plexus Cotton Ltd. Factories in other countries “just operated at much better margins than producing in the US.”

The director of risk management at Plexus Cotton Ltd, Peter Egli, said that the US mill use has “just disappeared." Factories in other countries “just operated at much better margins than producing in the US.”