All of us know about the current crisis of U.S. farming. Not all of us know that the farming crisis is worldwide. Instead of the global famine that some predicted, we are enveloped in global farm surpluses that have produced an international trade war and threaten the entire structure of farm programs in the developed countries. That makes the cotton outlook difficult to predict in the short run.

On the one hand, the USDA's 1987 Outlook Conference says world cotton production is down about 7 million bales, U.S. exports are up 5 million bales, and the outlook for the years ahead is fairly bright. But the same outlook conference noted that foreign farmers are producing record crops and the world has record farm surpluses -- including huge cotton stocks.