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Industry Profiles

Texas in Focus: South Texas

Industry Profiles

Agriculture is a major factor in the South Texas regional economy. Crop and animal production provided nearly 20,000 jobs in 2007.¹⁹

Texas is the national leader in cattle, ranking first among states in its number of cattle, number of cattle operations and value of all cattle.²⁰ The South Texas region had about 7 percent of the state’s cattle or 943,000 head in 2008 (Exhibit 12).²¹

Texas is the nation’s fourth-largest producer of sugarcane, and all of it is grown in the South Texas region – more than 1.6 million tons harvested from 39,200 acres in 2006.²² Hidalgo County was the region’s – and state’s – largest sugarcane producer (Exhibit 13).²³

Head of Cattle, South Texas, 2008

County	All Cattle
Kleberg	107,000
Bee	75,000
Starr	62,000
Webb	60,000
Uvalde	59,000
Other Counties	580,000
South Texas Total	943,000

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Sugarcane Production, South Texas, 2006

County	Harvested Acres	Produced Tons
Hidalgo	20,900	882,000
Cameron	12,500	474,000
Willacy	5,800	259,000
South Texas Total	39,200	1,615,000

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Texas is the nation’s second-largest producer of grain sorghum, and South Texas produces a large portion of the state total.²⁴

South Texas farmers harvested nearly 19.4 million bushels of sorghum for grain in 2006, 31.1 percent of the state total. Four of the top five sorghum-producing counties are in the South Texas region. Hidalgo County was the region’s – and state’s – largest producer, with more than 4.4 million bushels, followed by Cameron County. In all, more than 430,000 acres of sorghum were harvested in the region in 2006 (Exhibit 14).²⁵

Region’s Largest Producers of Grain Sorghum, South Texas, 2006

County	Planted Acres	Harvested Acres	Produced Bushels
Hidalgo	101,100	63,700	4,409,000
Cameron	91,300	78,000	4,028,000
Nueces	158,700	92,400	2,631,000
San Patricio	66,700	43,100	2,095,000
Kleberg	41,100	39,000	1,900,000

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Region’s Largest Producers of Upland Cotton, South Texas, 2006

County	Planted Acres	Harvested Acres	Produced Bales
Kleberg	39,900	35,600	68,200
Nueces	175,900	54,500	63,800
Hidalgo	77,800	33,300	56,300
Cameron	55,000	38,200	50,600
San Patricio	191,300	27,100	47,000

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Texas is the nation’s largest producer of cotton, and the South Texas region produces much of it.²⁶

The region’s farmers produced nearly 400,000 bales of upland cotton in 2006, or about 7 percent of the state total. In that year, the region had 257,000 harvested acres of cotton, 6 percent of the state’s total acreage. Kleberg and Nueces counties were the region’s largest cotton producers (Exhibit 15).²⁷

Grapefruit and Orange Production, South Texas, 2005-2006

Fruit	Production (boxes)	Price (dollars per box)	Value
Grapefruit	5,200,000	$12.17	$63,292,000
Oranges	1,600,000	$6.62	$10,598,000
Total	6,800,000	–	$73,890,000

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Grapefruit dominates the Texas citrus industry, with most of the remainder being oranges. The South Texas region is home to all Texas citrus production. Hidalgo County contains 85 percent of all citrus acres in Texas, with the remainder in Cameron and Willacy counties.²⁸ In the 2005-2006 growing season, Texas was the nation’s third-largest citrus producer, behind Florida and California (Exhibit 16).

Preliminary numbers show that production has increased since 2005-2006, to 7.1 million boxes of grapefruit and 2 million boxes of oranges in 2006-2007, increases of 37 percent and 24 percent, respectively.²⁹

The South Texas region is also a large producer of onions. Texas is the nation’s second-largest producer of onions, and South Texas produces the vast majority of them. Four counties in the region – Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy – held three quarters of the acreage harvested in Texas during 2006.³⁰

Resaca Grove Farm, Rio Grande Valley

Resaca Grove Farm, Rio Grande Valley

PHOTO: Marin Pierce/Resaca Grove Farm

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