Cotton’s Ask of the Next Farm Bill

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

Dr. Gary Adams, President and CEO of the National Cotton Council, was naturally a key player at the recent Mid-Year Board Meeting for the group. Among the industry issues of discussion was – ding, ding, ding, you guessed it – the Farm Bill. The clock is running out.

So where does the National Cotton Council stand when it comes to its development?

“Certainly a number of challenges that they have in front of them. One of them is to be able to try to identify some new funding or some additional budget resources that could be used to enhance the safety net. The other challenge they’re working with is just the issue of time.”

As we’ve all seemingly accepted at this point, there’ll likely be some sort of short-term extension…

“The one thing for our growers to be aware of is just where we stand in terms of the development of the new farm bill. And our message has been that the general structure of this bill has worked well. But because of increased cost of production and because of some of the logistical and supply change challenges that we’re seeing, we need to see some enhancements in the safety net provided. And we’ll continue to convey that as we go forward through the rest of the year. I would say growers need to continue to monitor the situation and certainly know that we’re in Washington advocating for their priorities.”

Dr. Gary Adams, National Cotton Council.