{ "id": "R45143", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "number": "R45143", "active": true, "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, Federation of American Scientists", "versions": [ { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 584849, "date": "2018-08-01", "retrieved": "2018-10-05T22:56:17.260207", "title": "Seed Cotton as a Farm Program Crop: In Brief", "summary": "The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-123; BBA), signed into law on February 9, 2018, included a provision\u2014Section 60101(a)\u2014which amended the 2014 farm bill (P.L. 113-79) to add seed cotton as a \u201ccovered commodity,\u201d thus making cotton eligible for the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) farm revenue support programs.\nThe 2014 farm bill provides authority for farm programs for the 2014 through 2018 crop years. Under the 2014 farm bill as signed into law in February 2014, neither cotton nor its co-product, cottonseed, were eligible to participate in the newly created ARC and PLC programs. During the first three years of the 2014 farm bill (crop years 2014 through 2016), nearly $20 billion in support payments have been made to eligible program crops under ARC and PLC. \nUpland cotton had been eligible for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) farm support programs since their origin in the 1930s. However, in response to a trade dispute with Brazil, the 2014 farm bill permanently removed upland cotton from eligibility for the ARC and PLC programs. Instead, the remaining cotton-specific support programs were supplemented by offering the U.S. cotton sector new transitional payments and, in 2015, a new shallow-loss revenue insurance product: the Stacked Income Protection Program (STAX).\nSince early 2014, U.S. cotton producers have been largely unsatisfied with their economic situation due to falling cotton prices and the perceived lack of revenue support offered under STAX. In early 2015, the U.S. cotton sector began advocating to be made eligible for payments under the ARC and PLC programs. Several Members of the House Agriculture Committee (including both its chairman and ranking member) were supportive of this effort and actively sought a legislative opportunity to reintegrate either cottonseed or seed cotton\u2014the harvested but un-ginned cotton boll that includes both lint and cottonseed\u2014back into the revenue support programs in the 2014 farm bill. After several legislative attempts, this effort was successful when Congress passed the BBA with a provision that amended the 2014 farm bill to add seed cotton as a \u201ccovered commodity,\u201d thus making it eligible for either ARC or PLC beginning with the 2018 crop. \nTo participate in the seed cotton program, producers must first make three decisions specified in the new statute: what portion of their farm program generic base acres will be designated as cotton-specific base, whether to update historical cotton program yields (needed to determine the per-acre payment rate), and which program to participate in\u2014ARC or PLC.\nThe Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the cost of adding seed cotton as a covered commodity at nearly $3 billion over 10 years. However, accompanying budget offsets are projected to lower the net cost to $61 million.\nThe policy change for cotton has potential implications for both domestic and international commodity markets. However, perhaps the most critical aspect of the new seed cotton policy is that, as part of current law, it becomes part of CBO\u2019s budget baseline used to write the next farm bill. As a result, it avoids the potential policy debate surrounding a search for budgetary offsets that would otherwise be needed to pay for the costs associated with adding a new farm program. This result could facilitate reaching an agreement among congressional negotiators working on the farm support programs in Title I of a new farm bill.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R45143", "sha1": "ad68651153a7874020cc59e2172813d273454b73", "filename": "files/20180801_R45143_ad68651153a7874020cc59e2172813d273454b73.html", "images": { "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R45143_files&id=/1.png": "files/20180801_R45143_images_8db8d8d1b6f45c32de60a7edc5039f318f53eec9.png", "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R45143_files&id=/0.png": "files/20180801_R45143_images_41746225a3a74e6bf06256c7567ae6d6105eb2ff.png" } }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R45143", "sha1": "c48c1f2ea70f2b98f39c99e128e6cd44b323f12a", "filename": "files/20180801_R45143_c48c1f2ea70f2b98f39c99e128e6cd44b323f12a.pdf", "images": {} } ], "topics": [ { "source": "IBCList", "id": 4919, "name": "Farm Support" } ] }, { "source": "Federation of American Scientists", "sourceLink": "https://sgp.fas.org/crs/", "id": "R45143_FAS", "date": "2018-07-25", "retrieved": "2018-07-26T10:24:40", "title": "Seed Cotton as a Farm Program Crop: In Brief", "summary": null, "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORT", "active": false, "formats": [ { "format": "PDF", "filename": "files/20180725_R45143_2fe7fbd5ae2be24c9b6b791595c43b058a00eb25.pdf" }, { "format": "HTML", "filename": "files/20180725_R45143_2fe7fbd5ae2be24c9b6b791595c43b058a00eb25.html" } ], "topics": [] }, { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 579586, "date": "2018-03-26", "retrieved": "2018-05-10T10:58:21.846250", "title": "Seed Cotton as a Farm Program Crop: In Brief", "summary": "The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-123; BBA), signed into law on February 9, 2018, included a provision\u2014Section 60101(a)\u2014which amended the 2014 farm bill (P.L. 113-79) to add seed cotton as a \u201ccovered commodity,\u201d thus making cotton eligible for the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) farm revenue support programs.\nThe 2014 farm bill provides authority for farm programs for the 2014 through 2018 crop years. Under the 2014 farm bill\u2014signed into law in February 2014\u2014neither cotton nor its co-product, cottonseed, were eligible to participate in the newly created ARC and PLC programs. During the first three years of the 2014 farm bill (crop years 2014 through 2016), nearly $20 billion in support payments have been made to eligible program crops under ARC and PLC. \nUpland cotton had been eligible for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) farm support programs since their origin in the 1930s. However, in a significant departure from past U.S. farm policy, and in response to a trade dispute with Brazil, the 2014 farm bill permanently removed upland cotton from eligibility for the ARC and PLC programs. Instead, the remaining cotton-specific support programs were supplemented by offering the U.S. cotton sector new transitional payments and, in 2015, a new shallow-loss revenue insurance product: the Stacked Income Protection Program (STAX).\nSince early 2014, U.S. cotton producers have been largely unsatisfied with their economic situation due to falling cotton prices, and they have expressed additional concern regarding the perceived lack of revenue support offered under STAX. In early 2015, the U.S. cotton sector began advocating to be made eligible for payments under the ARC and PLC programs. Several Members of the House Agriculture Committee (including both its chairman and ranking member) were supportive of this effort and actively sought a legislative opportunity to reintegrate either cottonseed or seed cotton\u2014the harvested but un-ginned cotton boll that includes both lint and cottonseed\u2014back into the revenue support programs in the 2014 farm bill.\nAfter several legislative attempts, this effort was successful when Congress passed the BBA with a provision that amended the 2014 farm bill to add seed cotton as a \u201ccovered commodity,\u201d thus making it eligible for either ARC or PLC beginning with the 2018 crop. However, to participate, cotton producers must first make three decisions specified in the new statute: what portion of their farm program acres (referred to as base acres) will be designated as cotton-specific base, whether to update historical cotton program yields (needed to determine the per-acre payment rate), and which program to participate in\u2014ARC or PLC.\nThe Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the cost of adding seed cotton as a covered commodity at nearly $3 billion over 10 years. However, accompanying budget offsets are projected to lower the net cost to $61 million. Offsets include reallocating farm payments made to other program crops planted on former cotton program acres (known as \u201cgeneric base\u201d) back to cotton and repealing eligibility for STAX from cotton producers that participate in ARC or PLC.\nThe policy change for cotton has potential implications for both domestic and international commodity markets. However, perhaps the most critical aspect of the new seed cotton policy is that, as part of current law, it becomes part of CBO\u2019s budget baseline used to write the next farm bill. As a result, it avoids the potential policy debate surrounding a search for budgetary offsets that would otherwise be needed to pay for the costs associated with adding a new farm program. This result could facilitate reaching an agreement among congressional negotiators working on the farm support programs in Title I of a new farm bill.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R45143", "sha1": "568de9d46b6ec0b7794d482ebacb7dfc89e23c3a", "filename": "files/20180326_R45143_568de9d46b6ec0b7794d482ebacb7dfc89e23c3a.html", "images": { "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R45143_files&id=/1.png": "files/20180326_R45143_images_f7b83c5ec946e6b94ac8f70a459b7a29f6ddd5ae.png", "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R45143_files&id=/0.png": "files/20180326_R45143_images_306f65c5e2a151af84f14cb3e50c7b6028708b3e.png" } }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R45143", "sha1": "526f65ce65131698e6a53f750dca423ed24dcc2f", "filename": "files/20180326_R45143_526f65ce65131698e6a53f750dca423ed24dcc2f.pdf", "images": {} } ], "topics": [ { "source": "IBCList", "id": 4919, "name": "Farm Support" } ] } ], "topics": [ "Agricultural Policy" ] }