American Cotton Shippers Association (ACSA) sketched and passed several proposals to improve cotton industry.
In deliberations last week, the ACSA Board ofDirectors accepted the recommendations of its Farm Policy Development Committee to maintain the Marketing Loan Program as an essential producer safety net with modifications that would ensure that US cotton is available to move unencumbered into market channels at competitive prices.
ACSA also maintained its strong support for thecontinuation of the other important safety-net components of the cotton program – thedirect and countercyclical payment programs without limitations. The ACSA policy proposals will be discussed with cotton producer organizations and submitted to the National Cotton Council for consideration in the coming weeks. "Webelieve these changes, which cannot be adopted earlier than the 2008 crop, would eliminate the problems we are incurring today, where cotton is tied up in the loan," said ACSA President Manfred Schiefer. "Without Step 2, U.S. cotton is not competitive in theworld market place as the current program provides few incentives for producers to market their cotton. They simply put it in the loan and wait for higher prices that may ormay not come," the Lubbock merchant observed."
These changes would encourageproducers to, immediately after the harvest, focus on the costs of doing business bymaking available new marketing options to motivate producers to sell their cotton,"Schiefer said. One of the proposals would give producers the option to bypass the loan program and fixthe loan deficiency payment in any week within ten months following their harvest. This would allow producers to market their cotton promptly after harvest while retaining theflexibility to fix their loan deficiency payment at the most opportune time in themarketing cycle for their crop.
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