We are here to look ahead as best we can and refine our expectations as to the likely risks and rewards for planting cotton in 2001. I will try to explore that question from the viewpoint of one who has helped administer the cotton program for some years now. Despite the best intentions of those who conceived the so-called “Freedom to Farm” Act in 1995, and though we might wish otherwise, Government support has assumed a larger role in cotton farming in the last couple of years than it has ever played before. The promise of Government support, I am afraid, is coming to be regarded as one of the indispensable inputs in the spring, along with seed and fuel.