USDA unveiled the Great American Cotton Plan Thursday, an initiative to “strengthen the cotton farm economy, restore domestic textile manufacturing, expand cotton trade opportunities, and increase demand for products made with American-grown cotton.”
The announcement comes as cotton producers face a fifth consecutive year of negative returns driven by rising input costs, trade distortions, and increasing competition from synthetic materials. As part of the plan, USDA will elevate the “Plant Not Plastic” initiative to encourage consumers to purchase products made with healthy natural American cotton fibers rather than synthetic plastic-based alternatives.
USDA forecasters estimate that producers could lose approximately $2.6 billion across 9 million planted acres during the upcoming crop year. Since 1980, the number of U.S. cotton gins has declined from 2,254 to 446, while domestic textile production facilities have sharply contracted over the last two decades.
The National Cotton Council (NCC) commended USDA for initiating the Great American Cotton Plan and welcomes the support of America’s cotton farmers, strongly supporting the bipartisan Buying American Cotton Act (BACA) which would help increase domestic demand and production of U.S. cotton, encourage investment in U.S. textile mills, and create jobs here at home.
“Measures like BACA, along with the USDA’s Great American Cotton Plan and other recently implemented cotton initiatives, demonstrate key progress for America’s cotton industry,” said NCC Chairman Nathan Reed. “At a time when cotton producers are facing pressure from high input costs and market uncertainty, these steps are critical to the long-term success of our industry.”
