As you watch the news, you have probably been hearing about the various impacts of the government shutdown. National parks that are overrun with trash and TSAs callng in sick due to the shutdown. I hadn’t heard much about the impact on cotton farmers or the industry til this week. Like other areas of US business and culture, the impacts have begun to be felt for those who are focused on cotton.

Many USDA activities will remain active during the lapse in federal funding because they're related to law enforcement, the protection of life and property, or are financed through available funding.

Find out more about which programs are continuing: https://t.co/Z6bRX0Xryz

— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) December 30, 2018

There are a variety of services and programs in agriculture. Farmers are finding it important to understand which are considered critical and continue during the shutdown while others are stopped. This press release from the USDA lists a lot of those closings or continuation of services.

Here are a few ways the U.S. government shutdown is impacting cotton farmers.

Information Sharing

This week as experts from across the Cotton Belt gathered in New Orleans for the 2019 Beltwide Cotton Conferences. This conference is the kick off of the coming season and a review of the various learnings of the past year. If you have read the blog for years, you may remember previous articles about how much information is exchanged at the Beltwide.

Much of that great research at the Beltwide is conducted by members of the public sector. They have spent months looking into complex challenges farmers face, or new ways to use cotton fiber, or engineering new systems to help in ginning or textiles. Some of those researchers analyzed data from across several seasons only to end up having the shutdown leave them at home rather than traveling for this conference. My guess is there will be more conferences like this that will miss the voices of government researchers, economists, scientists and more.

There are also a number of reports that are used to understand the business — for instance, this weekend there would normally be reports on cotton ginning, crop production, rice stocks and more. This has potential impacts on trade, marketing and more.

Planning for 2019, Securing Loans

business and financial cycles for farms are frequently very different from other small businesses. Farmers outlay money throughout the season until a crop is harvested and sold. That can be especially tough on people who are just starting into farming or who are trying to grow their farm. It is especially hard for new farms to get started or incorporate new methods, etc. For some of these farms, there are loan programs in the Farm Service Agency. A friend of mine from Lubbock — Steve Verrett of the Plains Cotton Growers — talks about how loans are impacted by the shutdown in this video by a TV station there.

What am I missing?

I’m sure there are lots of other areas of impact with the shutdown — for instance I’m hopefull enough TSAs show up I can get to my next flight punctually.

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Last year, was a first for me. It was the first time in decades that I hadn’t kicked off the new year of winter meetings with the Beltwide Cotton Conferences (aptly names as folks come from all over the Cotton Belt for this). The Beltwide I wrote a short post about it as it happened. And while I have to admit, I had a great distraction since I was in Hawaii for a short vacation before the Farm Bureau’s annual meeting set my winter into work gear.  I have to tell you, it was strange. Surreal even.

I have never been able to match the sense of community at Beltwide. The meeting draws in people from all seven segments of the cotton business — farmers, ginners, warehousemen, cottonseed handlers, merchants, cooperatives and merchandisers. That means everyone from the farm to the finished product comes! There are meetings for all segments in the same place.

That may sound like a huge number of people, but think about it with the numbers I’ll give you.

• Although there are about 2 million farms in the US, only 18,600 cotton farms.
• There are approximately 1,300 cotton gins.
• The cottonseed segment is people who crush cottonseed into oil or work with hulls, etc and it’s tight.
• and on and on.

In addition to all of those segments, you get all the researchers who are investigating new stuff and folks like me who work for companies involved in the cotton industry. Out of that small group a couple thousand of them will come to San Antonio. We are closer than the alumni of major universities — there are fewer people and we get together in person annually.

We’ll attend meetings that help us understand what we can learn from the problems we had this year and we will find out more about the new thing on the horizon. We will celebrate farmers who have had great accomplishments and some of us will think about friends who won’t be there. And we will eat great TexMex while talking to dear friends who we don’t get to see nearly enough. My friend Elton Robinson explains it all in his post encouraging others to “squeeze it for all its worth.”

And if all of that wasn’t enough to get me to pack my suitcase early, I get to present to a group during a workshop. It will be my first time to present at the Beltwide. Quite frankly, I’m psyched. So psyched in fact I’ve already polled folks about cotton and social media here on the blog! Here’s the way I explained it on the blog at work:

I get to leave my mark on the last of the Beltwide Production Conferences during a Tuesday afternoon workshop. I will be alongside two other social media users for “You Are Now the Media: Social Networking in Agriculture” Tuesday morning from 10:30 to noon. My presentation will focus on the use of smartphones in the quest to provide information in videos and photos.

Speaking at Beltwide makes this a first for me but one in which I expect to see familiar faces giving me that friendly smile like Mr. Ray & Ms Dorothy did decades ago. I have joked that my being allowed to present at a conference of PhDs and researchers indicates the end of the world as we know it. But in reality, this year marks the last Production Conference for the cotton industry. The other technical conferences will continue and I expect more people will be encouraged to use social media to both communicate their experiences and to learn from others. And if that’s the case, maybe my being on the agenda makes perfect sense.
via A Beltwide Cotton Conference First After Decades of Attending | Beyond the Rows

I would love to see some familiar faces there Tuesday! You coming?

Related articles

• Poll on Cotton & Social Media (I need your help please!)
• 2013 Farm Press High Cotton winners announced
• The 12 Days of Cotton – My Christmas Homage to My Favorite Natural Fiber

The post Beltwide Cotton Conferences — If you love cotton, you really need to be there! appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Hey there friends! I think for some people, I may be one of the few connections you have to cotton farming. I’d love your help as I work on a presentation about social media for the cotton industry’s major meeting — the Beltwide Cotton Conference. As I’ve been working on my presentation, I kept thinking there are some questions that you could help me answer that may help me as I tell my social media story. And if it helps me encourage others to share their cotton story, all the better!

I’m trying to make this easy for you to help me, just a few questions with drop down answers and a text box where you can say anything else that you’d like to say anything about what you’ve learned, the sources you go to, etc.

One more thing…. I’d really appreciate your helping me get a few folks to fill this out if you have a few minutes to share it.

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Your connection to cotton’ type=’select’ required=’1′ options=’I wear it,I am in the cotton business,I%26#039;m not sure I have a connection’/][contact-field label=’Have you learned anything about cotton through social media?’ type=’select’ options=’Yes,No’/][contact-field label=’If you have learned about cotton through SM%26#x002c; have you ever shared that info with others’ type=’select’ options=’Yes,No’/][contact-field label=’Has social media had a lasting impact on your perception of cotton?’ type=’select’ options=’Yes (for the better),Maybe,No’/][contact-field label=’What else would you like to say about cotton %26amp; social media?’ type=’text’/][contact-field label=’Do you like seeing photos %26amp; videos online?’ type=’select’ options=’Yes,No,maybe’/][/contact-form]

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