Drought takes toll on country’s largest cotton producer

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Drought and extreme heat have severely damaged much of the cotton harvest in the U.S., which produces roughly 35% of the world’s crop. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Texas High Plains, the windswept region that grows most of the crop in the nation’s top cotton-producing state. Forecasters and agricultural economists say that Texas cotton farmers could abandon nearly 70% of what they planted in the spring, making it the worst harvest in more than a decade. Losses could cost the region $1.2 billion, despite the federal insurance payments that farmers rely on during bad harvest years.