Exerting Extra Effort
During 2015, the National Cotton Council worked diligently to encourage the implementation of sound farm programs while managing numerous trade and regulatory issues that threaten to undermine industry competitiveness. What about the farm law and trade matters? The NCC helped convince policy makers to implement the 2014 farm law’s insurance provisions beginning with the 2015 crop. We worked closely with USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) to improve the Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX) provisions for the 2016 crop year. Based on those discussions, RMA recently announced several key STAX modifications for 2016, among them: 1) allowing producers to elect a zero percent coverage range by practice; 2) allowing written agreements that affect insurable acreage to apply to STAX; and 3) making STAX coverage available for cottonseed through an optional endorsement. NCC staff and industry officials also coordinated with USDA to ensure the marketing loan program would allow cotton redemption from the loan at the adjusted world price to minimize disruption of flow and forfeitures. Equally important was getting USDA to implement a reporting and tracking system so producers and cooperatives could know their status relative to the unified payment limit. The NCC worked on multiple trade concerns. We helped defeat potentially damaging amendments to the cotton and textile industries during Congressional consideration of Trade Promotion Authority. During the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, we insisted that a yarn forward rule of origin be required for products granted preferential access to the U.S. market. Read More »