The enrollment period for the Farmer Bridge Assistance Payments has opened. Famers with a Login.gov account can find pre-filled applications online. Those that do not have a login.gov account can find the application at their FSA office according to the FBA website at USDA.

$12 Billion in assistance has been set aside for this program. $11 Billion of this is for row crops and could be delivered as soon as February 28, 2026. As a reminder, farmers needed to have planted acres on record at the FSA office by Dec 19, 2025 to qualify and cotton will be paid at a rate of $117.35 per acre, the second larges per acre payment.

More information can be found including instructions for applying for the program at:

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/resources/programs/farmer-bridge-assistance-fba-program

DSF

The 2026 NCGA Gin School registration is now open!

The dates for the 2026 Schools are:

• Southwest School – April 4-6 in Lubbock, TX
• Western School – May 5-7, in Mesilla Park, NM
• Stoneville School – June 2-4, in Stoneville, MS

The website and registration process has been updated. You can now add multiple attendees during the registration process, as well as choosing multiple locations, if you plan on attending more than one gin school this year.

There is still the option to pay by check or by credit card. The most exciting part is that you can make one online credit card payment for everyone attending the school.

To register more than one person, simply go back to the “Add Attendee” button and enter their information. Once you have entered everyone from your gin, you will be given a total amount owed and then you will have the option to pay by check or by credit card. A confirmation email will be sent to the registrant’s email address for your record.

The link to register is

https://ncga.cotton.org/ginschool/

As we approach the end of February, I would like to remind our members of the approaching deadline to electronically submit injury and illness data for the 2025 calendar year. The OSHA Record Keeping Rule requires employers keep records of all work related injuries and illnesses. This includes the OSHA 300, 300A and 301 forms that employers must have on file. In addition to the forms list above, there is an additional requirement to electronically submit injury and illness data on OSHA’s ITA website.

Any employer with 20 or more employees at any time during the calendar year is required to enter this data electronically, in addition to posting a hard copy of the OSHA 300A. The data entered electronically is essentially the same data contained in the OSHA 300A form. The deadline for electronic submission is March 2, 2026. Please do this prior to the deadline.

To access the electronic submission portal simply click this link OSHA Electronic Submission Page . Once you have accessed the OSHA ITA web portal via the above link, there will be a tab on the left side “Login.gov” that will bring up the page to log into your account. In 2023, OSHA transitioned its login procedure to the public’s one account access to government applications, Login.gov. You must have both an ITA account and a Login.gov account with the same email address to access ITA. Once logged in you will be prompted to enter data from the 2025 calendar year. Even if you had no entries on your OSHA 300A form you must still electronically submit this data on the OSHA ITA website.

If this is your first time using this electronic submission application or you just need help, this link will take you to many how-to articles . There is also a blue tab on the right side “FAQs” that provides step by step guidance. Feel free to contact the association as well if we can be of assistance.

Hopefully, this article will serve as a reminder of what must be reported and posted to be in compliance with OSHA’s Recordkeeping Standard. If OSHA comes to your facility, they will ask to see these forms going back for a period of 5 years. It is important to have the files and data on hand and easily accessible. More information regarding OSHA Recordkeeping can be accessed through OSHA Recordkeeping Rule as well as the 2020 Southeastern Cotton Ginners Safety Reference Manual.

AK

As February has arrived, I would like to remind our members that the OSHA 300A Form posting deadline is here. The OSHA Record Keeping Rule requires employers keep records of all work related injuries and illnesses. This includes the OSHA 300, 300A and 301 forms that employers must have on file. If you do not already have a copy of these forms, they can be accessed through this link OSHA Recordkeeping Forms and Instructions. The 300A Summary of Injuries and Illnesses is the only form that must be posted from Feb. 1 to April 30 of each year. The 300A must be posted in a common area where notices to employees would normally be posted. Be sure to post this form containing work related injury and illness data from calendar year 2025 beginning on February 1, 2026.

It is very important that the OSHA 300A Summary be filled out completely and correctly. In the case that there were no work-related accidents to report, the form must be filled out with zeros in each blank. Often the establishment information is also overlooked and or just not signed. One area of the establishment information that creates some confusion is the area asking about average number of employees and total hours worked. The average number of employees is simply the total number of paychecks written divided by the number of pay periods. This should include all full-time, part-time, temporary, migrant, salaried, and hourly employees.

The other form found at the link above is the OSHA 300 Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses. This is a log containing information about every work-related death and almost every work-related injury or illness that involves loss of consciousness, restricted work activity or job transfer, days away from work, and/or medical treatment beyond first aid. You must consider an injury or illness to be work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed to the resulting condition or significantly aggravated a pre-existing injury or illness. It is also important to completely fill out the OSHA 300 form. All columns must be totaled even if you had no accident to reports there must be a zero for a total. The information from the OSHA 300 form is used to complete the OSHA 300A form.

The final form mentioned is the OSHA 301 Injury and Illness Incident Report. This form is used to provide detailed case-specific information about how a work related incident occurred. Employers may use equivalent forms, such as workers’ compensation or insurance reports, provided they contain all the information required on the OSHA 301 form. There must be and OSHA 301 or equivalent form for each work related injury or illness represented on the OSHA 300 Log of Work-Related Injury and Illness.

This is also a good time to prepare your 2025 injury and illness data for electronic submission on the OSHA Web Portal. Any employer with 20 or more employees at any time during the calendar year is required to enter this data electronically. The data entered electronically is essentially the same data contained in the OSHA 300A form. The deadline for electronic submission is March 2, 2026. To access the electronic submission portal simply click this link OSHA Electronic Submission Page

More information regarding OSHA Recordkeeping can be accessed through the following links:

• OSHA Recordkeeping Rule
• Fisher Phillips FAQ
• OSHA recordkeeping and reporting FAQ
• Tutorial on Completing the OSHA Recordkeeping Forms

Hopefully, this article will serve as a reminder of what must be reported and posted to be in compliance with OSHA’s Recordkeeping Standard. If OSHA comes to your facility, they will ask to see these forms going back for a period of 5 years. It is important to have the files and data on hand and easily accessible. If you have any questions please give us a call.

Andy Knowlton

The following is from the National Cotton Council. The final numbers won’t be out until the week of the 22nd of December when the final acreage report is out. More information will be available at that time.

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Yesterday, during a roundtable with farmers, including cotton growers, at the White House, President Trump announced an economic assistance package for producers for the 2025 crop. The payment is meant as a financial bridge for growers until the increased benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act take effect in the fall of 2026.

I’ve included an outline of the provisions below. Specific commodity per-acre payment rates are expected to be announced during the week of December 22. The USDA press release is included here.

• $11 of $12 billion will be for row crops.

• It will be an ECAP-style program based on 2025 planted acres.

• Payment rates will be announced later this month.

• Producers will have until December 19 to make sure their acreage is on file and accurate. We believe USDA will announce exact payment rates after they’ve verified acreage numbers. 

• USDA will issue prefilled applications like they did with ECAP.

• USDA expects payments to be released by February 28, 2026.

• Program will not pay anything on prevent plant. If a second crop is planted following the prevent plant, that crop would qualify. Fallow land will not get a payment.
  
• Payment limits are different than ECAP. The payment limits will follow the one big, beautiful bill, so there’ll be a $155,000 per person or legal entity, and the AGI limits will be $900,000. In ECAP, producers could double their limit if 75% of their AGI was from farming. Unfortunately, this will not apply for this program.

As we’ve mentioned for some time, the Joint Cotton Industry Bale Packaging Committee (JCIBPC) has been deliberating on how to handle a directive from the National Cotton Council to phase out the use of Woven Polypropylene bagging and wire ties from use in the US. This initiative came about from the National Cotton Council’s Strategic Plan.

The JCIBPC took up the measure at its meeting in February but could not come to a consensus. The JCIBPC’s Executive Committee has met several times to attempt to reach an agreement on this which it did in September. The measure came to the full JCIBPC last week and the following table shows the phase out for these two materials.

TLDR: Woven PP bagging can be used through the 2031 crop and wire ties can be used through 2034 with 2031-2034 being export only.

Please see the attached letter from Chris Berry, JCIBPC Chair for more information. You can also call us if you have questions.

DSF