The Crisis

The value leaves the country.

America grows world-class Pima cotton, exports most of it unspun, and buys the value back at a premium. The fiber is ours. The spinning value is not.

Explore today’s map See the fix

>85%of U.S. cotton demand is exports $1.76/lbSpinning value lost 2,900+ miIllustrative detour · modeled

01Living map 02How we got here 03Economic loss 04Value loss 05Human stakes 06The fix

Story 01 · The Living Map

Domestic Spinning Mills and Cotton Farms as of Today

Explore the farms, gins, active mills, closed mills, ports, and routes that reveal America’s missing textile middle—and the proposed Yuma hub that can begin rebuilding it.

Interactive map · Select a site or route to explore the network.

Open the full map ↗

Story 02 · How We Got Here

Three decades in the making.

The crisis isn't an accident of the market — it's the result of choices about what America chose to build, and what it let go.

We forgot how to spin

America offloaded its spinning capacity — the mills, the machines, the know-how. We still grow the world's finest fiber, but can no longer turn most of it into quality yarn at scale.

Thirty years, no investment

For three decades the country poured capital into weapons and technology — but not the industrial backbone that turns cotton into value. So our farmers export almost all of their fiber, raw.

Someone else sets the price

The price of American cotton is dictated by foreign buyers and overseas mills — not by the farmers who actually grow it.

Story 03 · The Economic Loss

Economic loss.

Missing mills mean American cotton travels farther while spinning value and industrial capacity move overseas.

>85%

Export demand

Most U.S. cotton demand depends on exports.

Verified · USDA ERS

$1.76

Lost per pound

Modeled spinning value captured abroad.

2,900+

Round-trip miles

An illustrative offshore spinning route.

Illustrative route

The Broken Loop

Four steps. One costly detour.

American cotton leaves as fiber and returns after the spinning value has been added overseas.

American Pima cotton growing, exported in bales, spun into yarn overseas, and returned as finished yarn — American fiber goes out raw and comes back finished—the value is added everywhere except home.

Where the Value Goes

One pound of yarn. Two very different outcomes.

The raw fiber is always American. The question is where the spinning value-add is captured — and today the answer is: not here.

Today — spun abroadValue leaves the U.S.

American fibergrown in Arizona

+ $1.76 spinning value-addcaptured overseas

With a domestic hubValue stays home

American fibergrown in Arizona

+ $1.76 spinning value-addcaptured in the U.S.

Every pound spun overseas exports $1.76 of value-add that a domestic ring-spinning hub would keep in American hands — multiplied across millions of pounds a year.

The Dual Crisis

Two crises, each the other's solution.

U.S. cotton farmers face unprecedented financial strain just as Yuma faces extreme structural unemployment. A farmer needs a buyer; a distressed region needs an industry.

+46%

Farm Bankruptcies Verified

Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies rose 46% across full-year 2025 (AFBF) — with first-half filings up even more sharply, ~57–70% over the prior year.

3×

Human Cost

The suicide rate among agricultural workers runs roughly three times the national average.

>30%

Input Costs

Rise in farm input costs over five years — row crops unprofitable since at least 2022.

16.0%

Yuma Unemployment BLS

May 2026 preliminary, Yuma metropolitan area.

Cotton futures63.14¢/lb

November 12, 2025; down 8.24% year over year.

Global supply glut+392K tonnes

Production surpassed consumption in 2024–25.

Input costs>30%

Five-year increase while major row crops remained under pressure.

Farm bankruptcies+46%

Full-year 2025 Chapter 12 filings versus 2024.

U.S. cotton demand represented by exports>85%

Verified by USDA ERS for overall U.S. cotton demand.

Watch · The human cost

Inside the American farm crisis.

Fifth-generation cotton and soybean farmers in Tennessee and Missouri describe the same forces behind this initiative: crops unprofitable since 2022, input costs up 30%+ in five years, a 57% rise in farm bankruptcies in the first half of 2025, and an agricultural suicide rate three times the national average.

Sources: documentary footage (YouTube, 2025) corroborating Yu-Pima Cotton Initiative proposal figures; farm bankruptcy data per American Farm Bureau Federation (full-year 2025); cotton futures per Trading Economics / USDA, Nov 2025.

The Crisis Has a Fix

Bring the spinning step home.

A domestic ring-spinning hub in Yuma, Arizona closes the loop — and keeps the value on American soil.

See the solution Read the economic case