The topic I have been asked to present is not an isolated area of cotton production. Every other item on the program today closely relates to ginning efficiency. Also, ginning efficiency impacts directly on cotton quality and marketing management which will be presented in the following sessions. For many years, the production, harvesting, ginning, marketing, and textile manufacturing of cotton were treated as separate areas with the result being that problems created or encountered in the beginning process were simply passed on down the line to be dealt with. I am now glad to say that cotton, from stalk to cloth, is being treated as a system, and it is being recognized that each step in the cotton system has a great impact on each succeeding step. Computer people have an acronym they use called "GIGO" which stands for garbage in garbage out. If one feeds bad data into a computer system, one obtains erroneous results. The same can be said for the cotton system: low quality in, low quality out. Maximizing ginning efficiency means maintaining the highest possible quality at the lowest possible cost. Maximizing ginning efficiency does not start at the gin yard but instead begins with the cotton producer.