Terrifying Tariffs and the Global Cotton Market
The Beltwide Cotton Economic Outlook Conference this year was a sobering one for the industry.
“Cotton prices have been stagnant since planting…we’ve traded in more or less a six cent range over the last six months,” said Beau Stephenson, Omnicotton, Inc. in his presentation on the Changing Global Cotton Market. “This is not an exciting price pattern for the producers who’ve been waiting for anything that looks like profitability.”
Stephenson discussed the impact of non-U.S. growth in cotton production, particularly Brazil and Australia, that the U.S. lost the China market again, and that while India has increased imports, they are not coming from the U.S.
The Changing Global Cotton Market: Implications for U.S. Price Discovery – Beau Stephenson, Omnicotton, Inc.
Beau Stephenson, Omnicotton, Inc. - presentation 20:55
Darren Hudson, Texas Tech University, followed up on Stephenson’s presentation with his report on the impact of tariffs on U.S. cotton exports.
Overall, Hudson said so far the tariffs have had minimal impact on U.S. apparel imports, and while the U.S. cotton share of the global cotton market has slipped, the issue is large declines in the overall cotton share globally. “This is about global demand,” said Hudson. “Everything else will sort itself out if you increase global demand.”
Hudson says just a one percent increase in mill use would have significant impact on price improvement, acreage, and exports. “That one percent increase in mill use is a ten cent differential,” he said.
The Impact of Tariffs on US Cotton Exports and Apparel Imports – Darren Hudson, Texas Tech University
Darren Hudson, Texas Tech University - presentation 20:09
AgGateway Receives ASABE Innovation Award
AgGateway is being recognized for the release of its ADAPT Standard and ADAPT Standard Plugin with a 2026 AE50 Award at the the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) Agricultural Equipment Technology Conference next month in Louisville, Kentucky.
Sponsored by Resource magazine, a publication of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), the AE50 Award program annually recognizes top innovative new products of the previous year.
The AgGateway ADAPT Standard is a data model expressed as JSON Schema with standardized data type definitions designed for business-to-business transfer of agricultural production data. Created using connectCenter, an innovative data modeling tool developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Open Applications Group (OAGi), ADAPT Standard is the result of collaborative efforts of AgGateway member experts and built on nearly a decade of open source development. It is the world’s only standard that supports a broad range of field operations data that has been implemented by leading farm management information systems.
The accompanying ADAPT Standard Plugin links the ADAPT Framework to the ADAPT Standard, ensuring that legacy data formats can be translated via existing integrations into the new, open industry standard format. ADAPT Standard is a high-value tool in the ADAPT set of resources alongside the ADAPT Framework and other ADAPT plugins. For more information, visit the ADAPT Standard website.
“We’re thrilled that ASABE is recognizing this milestone achievement in farm data interoperability,“ says Jim Wilson, AgGateway’s Chief Technology Officer. “In accepting this award, we thank the ADAPT Committee members for their dedication of time, talent, and expertise to bring ADAPT Standard to the agriculture industry, and the National Agricultural Producers Data Cooperative for their sub-award under NIFA grant 2023-77039-41033 for supporting the development of the ADAPT Standard plugin.”
Listen to an interview with Wilson from the 2025 AgGateway annual meeting to learn more about ADAPT.
Interview with Jim Wilson, AgGateway (2:27)
SAP and Syngenta Partner for AI-Assisted Agriculture
Jeff Rowe – CEO of Syngenta Group (left) and Christian Klein – CEO of SAP (right)
The partnership will embed artificial intelligence at the core of Syngenta’s enterprise, modernizing operations and enabling accelerated innovation through advanced data analytics across the business — from manufacturing and supply chain to grower-facing products and services.
Agriculture continues to navigate challenges driven by climate variability, supply chain complexity, and global uncertainty. By deploying AI-assisted tools enterprise-wide, this partnership positions Syngenta to meet the challenge of feeding a projected 10 billion people by 2050, while unlocking faster innovation, stronger operational resilience, and scalable impact across the business.
Syngenta’s transformation will begin with SAP Cloud ERP Private solutions, modernizing core operations across the value-chain to deliver agility, resilience, and scalability. The company’s ambition is clear: unlock innovation faster, strengthen its leadership in agriculture, and future-proof operations against volatility.
Through SAP Business Data Cloud, Syngenta will create a unified, more secure, and scalable data foundation essential for real-time decision-making and AI integration. Combined with SAP Business AI and AI-assisted tools such as the Joule copilot, this will help the company explore smarter, faster decisions that drive operational efficiency and accelerate innovation. Additionally, Syngenta will be able to deliver better products and services to growers worldwide while enabling them to retain control and privacy over their proprietary information.
Trump Signs Bill Putting Whole Milk Back in Schools
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 into law, allowing whole and 2% milk to return to America’s schools where it has been banned since 2012 under President Obama.
“This is the first bill signing of the new year, and it will ensure that millions of school aged children have access to high quality milk as we make America healthy again,” said President Trump during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office that included members of Congress who sponsored the bill, dairy farmers from around the country, and Secretaries Brooke Rollins and Robert F. Kennedy.
Rollins said students will have access to whole milk again as soon as possible. “USDA is posting today the new rule making that is necessary to get whole milk back into school lunches,” said Rollins, estimating it “should just take a few weeks.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy called the bill “a long overdue correction that puts children’s health first.”
Listen to the ceremony remarks here:
President Trump Signs Whole Milk Act 31:21
Regev® HBX BioPowered™ Fungicide Label Expanded
Summit Agro USA today announced federal approval of an expanded label for Regev HBX BioPowered Fungicide, extending its use to dry edible beans, dried shelled peas and chickpeas. The expansion provides growers of dry beans and shelled peas with an additional option to manage white mold (Sclerotinia sclerotiorum) and other economically important diseases in these crops.
White mold remains one of the most persistent and yield-limiting diseases in legume production, particularly under dense canopy conditions. Regev HBX brings to dry bean growers the same BioPowered™ Chemistry that has demonstrated strong performance against white mold in soybeans, now available on additional acres where disease pressure continues to challenge yield stability and profitability.
“This label expansion gives growers another strong option for protecting yield where white mold pressure is a constant concern,” said Eric Tedford, R&D Manager for Summit Agro USA. “Regev HBX has a proven track record in soybeans, and its multiple mechanisms of activity make it a valuable addition to disease management programs in dry beans.”
Regev HBX is part of Summit Agro USA’s BioPowered portfolio. By uniting tea tree extract and difenoconazole, Regev HBX delivers preventive, curative and anti-sporulant control with nine mechanisms of activity and only one MRL, supporting resistance management and reduced chemical load.
“BioPowered Chemistry represents the next step in crop protection and field health,” said Justin Gayliard, CEO of Summit Agro USA. “It leverages the unique benefits of biologically derived active ingredients and reinforces them with the exceptional strength of synthetic actives, delivering the consistency, performance, and convenience growers expect. These solutions are designed to fit easily into existing programs and complement a wide range of production practices.”
Capstone Journeys in Cotton Engineering
Engineering students at Texas A&M are working on capstone projects that could help the cotton industry in the future.
Michael Buser is Professor and Endowed Chair in Cotton Engineering, Ginning and Mechanization at Texas A&M and he had two student teams who presented their projects at last week’s Beltwide Cotton Conferences.
“One is working on a feeder for a breeder gin stand. The other is developing a platform for crawling across cotton seed piles as an early detection for fire project,” said Buser.
Texas A&M students: Jedidiah Munsell, Lacie Horton, Reed Kallus, and Benjamin Williams
Buser says right now the teams are about halfway done with their projects. “So they’ve got recommended solutions that their clients have signed off on. So when we get back next week, starting January 12th, These young folks are going to start building these designs that they have. They’re going to do the fabrication, they’re going to go through, do the assembly, and then they’re going to do the testing and evaluation. They’ll take those results, determine how well those designs performed, and then they’re going to go through and do redesigns until they try to, until they come close to meeting the client needs.”
Learn more in this interview with Buser.
Michael Buser, Texas A&M - interview 5:32
USDA Secretary Addresses Key Issues at AFBF Convention
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins addressed the American Farm Bureau Federation convention for the first time Monday, hitting on key issues being discussed by the nation’s largest general farm organization this week.
Rollins started with the bad news. “All of America is under threat when American agriculture is under threat. And there’s no doubt that right now, American agriculture, your way of life, is under threat,” Rollins said. “According to the latest USDA Census of Agriculture, we have lost over 140,000 family farms in just the last few years. The last administration, and the one prior to the first time we were in with Trump, basically hollowed out our heartland, our factories, and our farms.”
However, Rollins says all that changed when President Trump took office again, one year ago this month. “President Trump is rebuilding the farm economy by focusing on what matters — lower costs, reliable financing, stronger markets, and fair trade.”
Listen to Rollins’ comments here:
AFBF26 USDA Secy Rollins address 29:59
Industry Ag News 1/12
DWFI Podcast 49 – Irrigation as a Service: A New Paradigm
In our first episode of 2026, host Frances Hayes discusses a unique approach to supporting access to irrigation for smallholder farmers with Erin Anders, Senior Program Manager at the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute.
Farmers of all sizes in all parts of the world need access to water, inputs and financing to grow food. Irrigation as a Service (IaaS) is an emerging business model to expand irrigation access, especially to smallholder farmers, and ultimately grow more food.
Irrigation as a Service (IaaS) has a broad definition but generally refers to the concept of third-party providers of irrigation in which the farmers do not own or maintain the equipment. The companies that arise under this business model can look very different and employ a variety of methods. However, they all unlock vital irrigation access to millions of smallholder farmers globally without the burden of high upfront costs.
Erin and her team have been working closely with and supporting entrepreneurs across the globe who are pioneering and providing this essential irrigation as a service, including those featured in the DWFI’s recent series on IaaS. In this episode, she gives an insider’s look at the challenges and potential of this growing movement.
DWFI podcast episode 49 27:08The Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute (DWFI) at the University of Nebraska was founded with the mission to have a lasting and significant impact on achieving more food security with less pressure on scarce water resources by conducting scientific and policy research, using the research results to inform policy makers, and sharing knowledge through education and communication.
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