USDA Cotton Loan Rate Adjustments

WASHINGTON - Apr 10/07 - SNS -- The USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) today announced that loan rate adjustments for the 2007 crops of upland and extra long staple (ELS) cotton are now available online.

The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) administers loans on behalf of CCC. Tables of 2007-crop upland and ELS cotton loan rate adjustments for individual quality factors can be found on FSA's Web site at http://www.fsa.usda.gov; click on Price Support, then Loan Rates. The Web site also includes loan rates for the base grade of upland cotton at each approved warehouse location.

FSA uses the schedules to administer CCC nonrecourse marketing assistance loans for producers. The schedules include characteristics such as color, grade, staple length and leaf content. They are used to determine loan rates for particular zones in the United States. FSA used the same procedures for the 2006 cotton crop loan rate adjustments to determine the 2007 premiums and discounts.

USDA will apply the 2007-crop loan rate adjustments to national average CCC loan rates of 52.00 cents per pound (the same as 2006) for upland cotton and 79.77 cents per pound (also unchanged) for ELS cotton.

Nonrecourse marketing assistance loans provide producers financing to store harvested crop production rather than immediately selling the crop. Marketing loans help ensure an orderly distribution of commodities to the marketplace throughout the year.