Estimated volume declined to a light 14,300 lots. Acreage history and yield reports will be mailed this week to assist producers in their seed cotton safety net decisions.
Cotton futures traded on both sides of unchanged and settled lower across the board Tuesday in a lightly traded, mostly narrow-range session.
December lost ground a second day, finishing down 41 points at 84.51 cents, near the low of its 88-point range from down 52 points at 84.40 to up 36 points at 85.28 cents. Maturing July closed down 90 points to 85.04 cents, trading within a 223-point range from 84.09 to 86.32 cents.
The USDA’s weekly export sales-shipments report on Thursday — a batch of long-rumored old-crop cancellations showed up in last week’s data — and the planted acreage report on Friday may have contributed to the light turnover amid uncertainty on the outcome of international trade disputes.
Volume declined to an estimated 14,300 lots from 17,134 lots the prior session when spreads accounted for 4,903 lots or 29%. Options volume rose to 7,398 lots (3,987 calls and 3,411 puts) from 5,606 lots (3,121 calls and 2,485 puts).
On the farm policy front, acreage history and yield reports are being prepared by USDA for agricultural producers with generic base acres covered by the Agricultural Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs.
Given the addition of seed cotton as a covered commodity in the programs, the information will help producers decide the best options for how to allocate generic base acres.
“It’s important that producers take a few minutes to compare the information they receive with their farm records,” Richard Fordyce, administrator of USDA’s Farm Service Agency, said in a news release. “If something is incorrect, we encourage them to contact their local USDA office.”
The bipartisan budget act of 2018 amended the 2014 farm bill, adding seed cotton as a covered commodity under the ARC and PLC programs. The FSA this week started to send information on current generic base acres, yields and 2008-2012 planting history to producers.
Under that act, FSA is using 2009 through 2012 as the period to compute the conversion of generic base acres to seed cotton base acres. In contrast, the 2008 through 2012 period is used to calculate yield updates to seed cotton.
Producers will have an opportunity this summer to allocate their generic base acres and update their seed cotton yields.
All producers electing to participate in either the ARC or PLC program will be required to make a one-time, unanimous and irrevocable choice between ARC and PLC for the 2018 crop year for seed cotton only. Producers who elect ARC with the individual farm option will continue with that option because that election applies to all base acres on the farm.
Under the anticipated timeline, the FSA will begin mailing letters on Friday notifying producers of current base acres and yields and 2008-2012 planting history. An online ARC and PLC decision tool will be available in July when producers can update yields and allocate generic base acres.
In late July, there will be ARC and PLC one-time elections for seed cotton and sign-up will begin for farms with seed cotton base acres. The FSA will provide updates as dates solidify.
Certified stocks grew 2,690 bales to 88,762 on Monday, the ICE daily report showed. There were 6,773 bales decertified and 4,083 bales decertified. Open interest declined 461 lots to 258,821, with July’s down 42 lots to 890 and December’s down 1,670 lots to 182,638.
