C&T Stakeholder Newsletter

USDA Agricultural Marketing Service sent this bulletin at 04/16/2024 03:44 PM EDT
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The Stakeholder Newsletter of the Cotton & Tobacco Program - April 2024

To the valued customers and stakeholders of the AMS Cotton and Tobacco Program:

Angie Snyder - official

This is our first 2024 edition of the AMS Cotton and Tobacco (C&T) Program stakeholder newsletter and my first as the program’s new Deputy Administrator. I’ve been in my role for about 11 weeks and have already met with many of you, but if I haven’t had the opportunity to meet you yet, I’ll offer a short introduction. I’ve held a variety of leadership roles in USDA and have had the privilege of serving the livestock, poultry, egg, seafood and aquaculture, oilseed, and specialty crops communities. My management portfolio also included leading the cotton warehousing and economic assistance programs. Personally, I grew up as a military kid and later was a military spouse, which afforded me the opportunity to live all over the country and internationally.

We have some exciting highlights to share with you in this newsletter. With our newest automation, we are on the verge of upgrading the cotton conveyance system in our Macon classing office, which will further modernize our classing operations. In this newsletter, you will learn more about our participation with the Joint Cotton Fungibility Working Group regarding analysis of module average data to assist the committee with its charge to improve the flow of cotton throughout the supply chain. We are also excited to share with you the latest on the 30th Universal Cotton Standards Conference.

The C&T Program is drawing to the end of the 2023-24 cotton season with 11,740,798 samples classed (as of April 11, 2024). Those samples comprise 11,438,298 Upland bales and 302,500 Pima bales. As you are too keenly aware, the crop was another low one, following last year’s crop that was also low at around 14.1 million bales. You will find all these statistics in the Crop Quality Report segment below.

It is an honor to serve you through our suite of programs. I look forward to engaging more with you.

Study Results for the Joint Cotton Fungibility Working Group

% Bales Module Averaged

How is the Cotton and Tobacco Program (C&T) involved?
The Joint Cotton Fungibility Working Group is made up of the Cotton Flow Committee and the Quality Task Force. The working group requested that C&T perform several studies pertaining to the possibility of averaging color grade and leaf grade along with the other classification factors. The result would be a module that has the exact same quality measurements on all bales in the module.

What are the study results?
To date, several studies have been performed including:
• Averaging all bales with Color and Leaf included.
o This study showed that there can be significant differences in variability from module to module and in different color and leaf grades.
• The working group requested C&T look at only 4-bale modules to study variability.
o This study involved taking all modules originally submitted as 16 bales and separating them into four different 4-bale modules since a very small amount of original 4-bale modules are submitted for classification.
o The standard deviations for this study showed less variability in the data although some lower color and leaf grades still had significant variability.

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Macon, Georgia Classing Office Automation Update

Macon -new automation system

C&T is in the process of installing an automation system in our Macon, Georgia cotton classing facility. The current manual classing operation has been in place for the past 25 years and we are making significant upgrades that utilizes conveyors for sample movement. The improvements will reduce the number of cotton testing instruments by 30% and still achieve the same productivity capabilities of up to 50,000 samples tested per day. The improvements increase program efficiencies by reducing instrumentation and improving the testing cycle time of each instrument through the utilization of new technologies to deliver samples just in time.

The image provided here gives a first look at the system as it was being assembled in the vendor’s warehouse. One of the systems was transported to the Macon classing office during the first week of April and the final system followed one week later. The final completion date is scheduled for May 1st. We will then begin the process of commissioning the systems to ensure they meet the contract specifications for productivity.

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2023 Crop Quality Highlights

Bales Classed by Classing Office

 

The Cotton and Tobacco Program Market News Division’s most recent Season to Date (Monthly) Quality Report for the 2023 cotton crop contained quality data on bales classed through March 28, 2024. C&T Classing Offices graded 11,437,322 Upland bales and 302,321 bales of American Pima. For the 2023 crop, 79.3 percent of cotton classed was tenderable for delivery against the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Cotton Futures contract. 

 

 

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30th Universal Cotton Standards Conference

 

QR Code UCS Conf

On Feb. 13th, 2024 the USDA announced the appointment of 24 members to the Advisory Committee on Universal Cotton Standards (Notice to Trade). The Committee will convene at the 30th Universal Cotton Standards Conference June 25-27, 2024, in Memphis, Tennessee. During the conference, the committee will review any proposed changes and make recommendations to the Secretary regarding additions or revisions to the Universal Cotton Standards. They will also review and approve the practical forms of the Universal Upland Cotton Grade Standards which will be distributed beginning July 2024.

For additional information about the upcoming Universal Cotton Standards Conference, please:
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