David Bosselman has been farming cotton since 1995 in Suffolk’s Myrtle community. But, in 2022, sale prices for the crop plummeted after hitting a high, dropping from about $1.50 per pound to close to 75 cents in six months.
It left Bosselman thinking about new ways to bring in money. In 2023, the family patriarch of Bosselman Farms started the groundwork for a T-shirt company using his Suffolk-grown cotton.
At first, he thought it would be simple. But now, in 2026, after the Old Myrtle Cotton Co.’s first run of shirts, he’s learned there was a lot he didn’t know about the venture.
“We had a lot of mistakes,” Bosselman said. “You’ve got to do anything you can to survive.”
Bosselman Farms had plenty of cotton, more than 2000 bales of it in 2025, but no experience with clothes manufacturing. They needed to build partnerships, but that proved difficult because of the business’ small size and the tight margins for U.S.-based production.
“It costs a fair amount of money to get these shirts made,” Bosselman said. “This is a niche market, it’s got to be for somebody who truly wants to buy American-made.”
It took a couple years to find yarn spinners and fabric weavers and last year found partners in North Carolina to work with them. Those partners introduced him to Betsy Franjola, owner of the Hocking Hills Garment Center in Buchtel, Ohio, which now sews Old Myrtle’s shirts. Franjola started the business in 2024 after decades in the industry working for firms including Tommy Hilfiger. Bosselman found in Franjola a kindred spirit with a passion for American-made clothing.
“She was looking for material,” Bosselman said. “She liked my idea and, of course, I liked hers.”
Old Myrtle is now about six months old. Its first run of shirts runs $27 to $32. Though they sell online, Bosselman is focused on selling them locally from his farm and community markets for now and is working with businesses looking for American-made shirts for their companies.
"We've got to get started somewhere," he said. "We've got to make a profit first."
He hopes to make about $5 profit a shirt once they get past the early hiccups.
“I’m not going to gouge people,” Bosselman said. “Never have, never will.”
Many family farms are looking for ways to supplement their businesses. Though technology has advanced and crop variety has improved yields in some cases, the cost for necessities from seed to machinery has become more expensive. Growers face uncertain export markets as countries respond to U.S. tariffs. More recently, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz following U.S. strikes on Iran pushed up costs for fuel and fertilizer at a critical time for farms.
“The stuff is going up almost daily,” Bosselman said in mid-April. “And this is the worst time of the year, because we’ve got to have it now to plant.”
The additional money from the shirts could mean a lot for the Bosselmans. Cotton commodity prices have fluctuated in the 2020s. They reached close to 50 cents per pound in 2020. Farmers got a small reprieve in 2024 after prices dropped from their 2022 peak, but since then cotton growers have weathered two years of dwindling prices. They’ve only just begun to rebound in 2026.
“I was getting 62 cents per pound last year for cotton.“I’ll bet you it’s not more than $1.20 worth of cotton in here,” Bosselman said, holding up a shirt. “If I can make $5 of profit on that shirt, you look at how much more money I’ve gotten for that pound of cotton.”
The time it’s taken to start the operation shows the difficulty and creativity farmers need to carve sustainable paths forward, Bosselman said. Farms throughout Suffolk and the country have been closing for years. Bosselman, though, wants to buck the trend and keep his farm in production.
“Are we going to get rich? Probably not,” Bosselman said. “But maybe we can add some value here for the family and keep things going.”
