Seed Cotton, Farm Bill Meeting

The Fort Bend County offices of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension and the USDA Farm Service Agency will be hosting a Seed Cotton Meeting to discuss decisions producers will face with the 2018 Farm Bill and cover the 2017 Wildfires and Hurricanes Indemnity Program (WHIP). The meeting will be held on Thursday, August 9, from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. at the Rosenberg Civic Center.  Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. and light refreshments will be served.

Dr. Joe Outlaw, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension economist and co-director of the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University in College Station, will discuss how the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 authorized changes to seed cotton as a covered commodity that requires farmers to act on their generic base acres. The goal of this meeting is to educate producers on the three tasks needed to enroll each Farm Service Agency-registered farm into one of the programs – update program yields, allocate generic base acres and select either ARC or PLC.

The 2017 Wildfires and Hurricanes Indemnity Program (WHIP) was also authorized in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. Details around the support it may provide to producers affected by those natural disasters in 2017 will also be covered. Sign up for Seed Cotton elections and WHIP will run through some time later this year.

For questions about the meeting or to RSVP, please contact Brandy Rader at 281-342-3034; for questions specific to seed cotton elections or WHIP, please contact the Fort Bend County office of the USDA Farm Service Agency at 281-232-6898 and press 2.