It's now January 1983, and 1982, the Chinese year of the dog - so correctly named for cotton - has drawn to a close. The cotton industry of the United States is again faced with a huge carryover of upland cotton, with an oversupply of approximately 9 million bales worldwide, of which about 4.5 million is in the United States.

As can be seen plainly, our biggest problem is huge stocks resulting from weak demand and successive years of high production. However, there are other factors which affect the financial conditions of the U.S. cotton industry such as the deterioration of the warehouse receipt, interest rate fluctuations, new marketing techniques of the farmers and the involvement of the U.S. government.

Let us now take a more in-depth look at some of these factors.