Communications

Public Attitudes

The National Cotton Council joined with a coalition of farmers and commodity groups in support of the non-profit Farm Policy Facts (FPF), created to educate Americans, particularly Congress, about agriculture’s contributions to a strong and vibrant United States. NCC’s FPF activities included urging industry members to petition Congress to “soundly reject any legislation that would destroy current farm policies and/or raid money budgeted for farmers and ranchers.”

A weekly e-newsletter was added to FPF’s web site, FarmPolicyFacts.org, which also can be accessed from a NCC web site link: http://www.cotton.org/about/related-orgs.cfm.

The NCC circulated a paper rebutting Oxfam’s unfounded criticisms of the U.S. cotton program and also submitted rebuttals to misguided editorials in both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

To draw more attention to concerns with the timing of a high profile session on cotton in the World Trade Organization Doha negotiations, a NCC-arranged telephone briefing was held with news media. American Cotton Producers Chairman Jay Hardwick told the media that, “We are concerned that these actions at this time are trying to produce an even more inequitable Doha Round Agreement for U.S. cotton – one that unfairly targets U.S. cotton producers and the U.S. cotton program.”

Support was given to America's Heartland, the weekly television program that This weekly PBS television program highlights the diversity and success of American agriculture.

Support was given to America’s Heartland, the weekly television program that highlights the diversity and success of American agriculture – and targets a largely urban audience. Support included committee service with other commodity organizations to identify and develop ideas for specific episodes and ways to publicize them. Programming schedules can be found at www.americasheartland.com. The outreach effort is now in its third season.

NCC staff met and consulted with Commercial Appeal writers to provide them background/fact-checking on the National Boll Weevil Eradication Program. The Memphis newspaper’s three-part series, which ran in November, included a focus on the benefits to the U.S. cotton industry and this nation of that industry-government partnership effort.

Information Services

The NCC conducted a telephone news briefing with trade writers and broadcasters to announce the NCC’s involvement in a multi-pronged, producer-aimed educational effort. The initiative included: 1) the Cotton eXtension Community of Practice, a web-based cotton information/data delivery platform that was launched at the 2008 Beltwide Cotton Conferences; 2) a new Beltwide Cotton Conferences’ Cotton Consultant Conference for the 2008 forum; and 3) the re-introduction of the NCC’s Cotton Physiology Today and the future direction of that newsletter.

Promotion and public relations support was given to Cotton Council International, The Cotton Foundation and to various cotton interest organizations such as the American Cotton Producers, the National Cotton Ginners Association and others. For example, CCI support included work on its annual directory, buyer’s guide, calendar, quarterly newsletters, CCI-FAX, as well as various audiovisual reports.

Audiovisual projects were conducted for both the NCC and other industry organizations. Among those efforts were the 2007 NCC staff report work with the National Cotton Ginners Association on revising scripts and acquiring footage for updating its gin safety videotapes.

Support was provided for retired NCC President/CEO Gaylon Booker who compiled the third historical publication on the NCC -- “History of the National Cotton Council – 1988-2007.”