Suffolk News-Herald

Two informative events have been scheduled for area cotton producers, and Rexford E. Cotten, Suffolk extension agent, said both meetings are vital to producing successful cotton crops in 2004.

The Regional Workforce Development Center at Paul D. Camp Community College in Franklin, will host the Fifth Annual Virginia Cotton Economics Meeting beginning at 9 a.m. Feb. 10, and cotton producers are encouraged to attend.

Organized by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Cotton Growers Association, Virginia Cotton Board and the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation in conjunction with the Risk Management Agency of the USDA, this meeting is a combination of the annual meetings of the Virginia Cotton Growers Association and the Virginia Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation. It also serves as an economics and marketing meeting.

Speakers scheduled for the event include Mitchell Buck, USDA Risk Management Agency of Raleigh, N.C.; Dr. Carl Anderson, Texas A&M University; John Huggins, Southeast Member Services field representative of the National Cotton Council, Washington, D.C.; J. Carlton Coulter III, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services; Sam Spruell, president, Southern Cotton Growers; and Joel Faircloth, Virginia cotton/peanut specialist at Virginia Tech.

Dr. Carl Anderson is one of the leading extension’s cotton-marketing specialists in the United States.

He is a professor and extension economist in the Department of Agricultural Economics/Texas Agricultural Extension Service at Texas A&M University. He has done much research on cotton, including price risk management, basis risk implications, and cotton standards and quality measurements. He stresses the need for innovation and adaptability in order for U.S. cotton growers to remain profitable and is known as an advocate for the importance of marketing and the need to embrace new ideas to improve production.

The registration cost for the meeting is $5 per person in advance or $10 at the door and includes lunch. Send pre-registrations prior to Feb. 3, to P.O. Box 27552, Richmond, Va. 23261 with checks payable to the Virginia Cotton Growers Association. For more information about the meeting please call 804-290-1153.

The 2004 Southeast Virginia Education Cotton Production Dinner meeting takes place at 4:30 p.m., Feb. 10, in Windsor High School.

According to the extension agent, Dr. Faircloth will also be speaking at this meeting, and Dr. Wade Thomason, a VCE grains specialist, will also address the group. Isle of Wight cotton plots results will be provided by Glenn Rountree, extension agent from that county.

Mike Roberts, VCE Southeast Virginia Farm Management coordinator, will also speak, along with Dr. Keith Edmisten, a NCSU cotton specialist. Practical and Economical Weed Control in Cotton is the topic on which Dr. Alan York, a NCSU weed scientist will speak, and he will be joined by Dr. Ames Herbert, an entomologist for VCE.

There will be a sponsored dinner and following the discussions, a question and answer period. For more information, or to register, call Cotten at 923-2050.