Source:  Drew Wilson, WILSON TIMES, 1/5/21

The Silver Lake Growers Cotton Gin ended the year with 14,000 bales of lint. That mark is well below the 38,000 bales ginned in 2019. “It was not a good year at all,” said Donald Smith, manager at the gin, located on N.C. 58 outside Elm City at the Wilson-Nash county line. The gin cleans cotton for farmers from many eastern counties, chief among them Wilson and Nash. Early in the year, the price of cotton “wasn’t great, but it was headed in a positive direction,” Smith said. “Prior to planting season, coronavirus came along, and the price of cotton dropped from 72 to 58 cents (per pound)”

For more of this story, click here.