USDA to provide $300M to help cotton producers

Cotton producers will receive $300 million in one-time ginning-assistance payments to help cope with the global downturn in prices for the commodity.  “The Cotton Ginning Cost Share program will offer meaningful, timely and targeted assistance to cotton growers to help with their anticipated ginning costs and to facilitate marketing,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The payments will be based on a producer's 2015 cotton acreage, multiplied by 40 percent of the average regional ginning cost. Vilsack said the average payment would be about 60 percent higher than producers received in a one-year cotton transition payment under the 2014 farm bill. The Farm Service Agency already has data for the vast majority of producers.