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Cottonseed debate continues

The struggling cotton industry wants Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to make cottonseed eligible for the main safety net programs that crops like corn and soybeans have.

Vilsack says he wants to help, but he doesn’t have the authority.  He told a Congressional budget panel this week that his decision is based partly on a 2013 Supreme Court ruling.

“And that is, if Congress knowingly omits somethings from an act, then the provision cannot be reasonably interpreted to allow the omitted act,” Vilsack said.

Congress knew what it was doing, Vilsack said, when it took cotton out of the basic farm program in the 2014 Farm Bill and put it into a separate program called the STAX program.

“Basically, Congress was fully aware of the oilseed of cotton and made the decision to remove it and place it in a separate program,” he said. “So you take the Supreme Court case, you combine it with the actions of Congress, and you have a circumstance where we don’t believe we have the authority.”

Vilsack said Congress will have to act if it wants cottonseed designated as an “other oilseed”.

The National Cotton Council says it will continue to pursue the cottonseed designation. Jody Campiche, an economic analyst with the council, says many cotton farmers are in dire financial straits. She tells Brownfield some producers, in fact, will find it very difficult to obtain production financing for the current year.

“I think it’s very likely that we have some producers who are not going to be able to meet their obligations on their 2015 loans, which means they likely will not be able to get financing for the 2016 crop,” Campiche says.

The Cotton Council believes Vilsack does have the authority to designate cottonseed as an “other oilseed”, Campiche says.