From Staff Reports

December 26, 2002 -- The cotton farmers in the 36-county Northern Blacklands zone voted recently on establishing a boll weevil eradication program, and the referendum failed, even though more producers voted "for" the program than "against."

The Texas Department of Agriculture issued 797 ballots to Northern Blacklands cotton producers who were eligible to vote in the referendum. A total of 330 ballots were returned by the Dec. 9 deadline. The tally showed a total of 190 producers voted "for" the eradication program, and 138 voted "against." The measure failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote or 50 percent of the zone's total cotton acreage.

The ballots contained two propositions: one, a vote for or against the program; and two, a vote for or against the assessment farmers would have to pay to fund the program.

Both propositions failed, according to Michael O'Connor, spokesperson for the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation. At least one year must elapse before another referendum on establishing a boll weevil eradication program can take place.

Of the 14 eradication zones in Texas, only two are inactive: Northern Blacklands and the Saint Lawrence zone, a three-and-a-half county area in far West Central Texas.

The Northern Blacklands Eradication Zone consists of approximately 70,000 acres of cotton in the following counties: Bosque, Bowie, Cass, Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Delta, Denton, Ellis, Fannin, Franklin, Grayson, Hamilton, Henderson, Hill, Hood, Hopkins, Hunt, Jack, Johnson, Kaufman, Lamar, Montague, Morris, Navarro, Parker, Rains, Red River, Rockwall, Somervell, Tarrant, Titus, Van Zandt, Wise, and portions of McLennan and Limestone.

The Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Program was established by the Texas Legislature in Senate Bill 30, 73rd legislative session, 1993. The Texas Department of Agriculture was deemed the state agency responsible for the program, and with adopting rules establishing criteria by which the Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation develops its own rules, procedures, and methods of treatment. The foundation is a nonprofit, grower-initiated and funded organization dedicated to eliminating the cotton boll weevil from Texas cotton fields.

Some of the first zones to participate in the program, Rolling Plains Central and Southern High Plains, have been deemed "functionally eradicated" of the boll weevil, which destroys the cotton's boll, thus, the crop.