By Clint Thompson
The Georgia Cotton Commission and executive director Taylor Sills remind Georgia cotton growers about the commission’s 2026 Mid-Year Meeting & University of Georgia Pre-Harvest Workshop, scheduled for Wednesday, July 29 at the Neesmith-Lane Conference Center in Statesboro, Georgia.
Pre-registration is free at www.georgiacottoncommission.org, though those interested in attending need to register by Saturday, July 11 to assist with lunch plans.
The event is slated to begin at 8:30 a.m. with a welcome, recognition of sponsors and a Georgia Cotton Commission report. It will include talks from industry leaders, including Rusty Rumley, senior staff attorney with the National Agricultural Law Center; and Bev Sylvester, chief marketing officer with Cotton Incorporated.
Meeting Highlights
Sills discussed the importance of the event this year with no shortage of topics to highlight.
“There is a lot going on in the cotton industry. We’ve got this Great American Cotton Plan that has been unveiled by the Trump administration recently. We’ll talk a little bit about that,” Sills said. “But I mean, the main people are coming to talk about things, our main industry speakers, they’re coming to talk about things that I can’t talk about.
“We’ve got Rusty Rumley from the National Ag Law Center who’s going to come talk about how the changes are brought on in terms of reference prices and payment limits and some of these other things that were brought on for the Big Beautiful Bill. He’s going to talk about how those changes are going to affect the business side of what farmers do and how they need to think about their business operations as we move into this new reality.
“And then we’ve got Bev Sylvester, who’s going to come, we’ve talked a while about how Cotton Incorporated has changed strategies when it comes to how they’re marketing cotton and positioning cotton as the fiber of choice. And she’s going to come talk in detail about the changes that they’ve made and their marketing plans.”
Questions may be directed to the Georgia Cotton Commission office at 478-988-4235.