Commodity options for cotton have now been trading for almost 15 months. When commodity options were initiated, they were heralded as an important new marketing tool. This new tool offered producers downside price insurance without requiring margin deposits and allowed buyers to participate in favorable price moves. For a number of reasons, there were not a large number of cotton producers in the Texas South Plains area who utilized options. With a stable, near-loan level price, even farmers with a good understanding of the futures market and commodity options were hesitant to use commodity options to "lock" in a price which was only slightly above loan level while having to deal with a large and volatile basis.