NATCHEZ — The bean is back.

Statewide, Mississippi soybean acreage is up 15 percent.

And Adams County farmers seem to be following that trend, Adams County Extension Director David Carter said.

“Soybean acreage is up, and that can be attributed to its low input costs and a fair market value,” Carter said.

Last year, soybean prices were favorable, but there was a shortage of quality soybean seed. This year, that’s not a problem, and planting is well under way.

Soybeans are a low maintenance crop. Rather than having to be fertilized, the plants actually enrich the soil surrounding them with nitrogen, reducing the amount of money that has to be invested in planting.

Corn and cotton, however, require more input, and even though fuel and fertilizer prices have fallen, the market prices for corn and cotton aren’t as good as they’ve been in the past, Carter said.

“Corn has gone down and cotton has almost gone out for this year,” Carter said.

But corn isn’t out, according to information from the MSU Office of Agricultural Communications.

That’s because biofuel production has placed demand for more corn to be grown to meet the needs of the biofuel industry and livestock producers, who use corn as a feedstock.

Statewide, cotton planting is down 15 percent.

“I don’t know of any cotton we will have in Adams County,” Carter said. “So statewide it’s 15 percent, but in Adams County it’s down 100 percent.”

Even if it doesn’t have a presence right now, though, Carter said he thinks cotton will make a comeback.

“I am sure it will come back, but your input and production costs are so high and the market is so unstable right now that a lot of farmers aren’t willing to (to plant cotton),” Carter said.