The Cotton Forum, two days of marketing education sandwiched around a professional baseball game, will be held in New York City, July 6-7, at the New York Board of Trade in lower Manhattan.

Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a mock trading session on NYBOT’s trading floor on the afternoon of July 6 before heading out that evening to Shea Stadium for a baseball game between the Mets and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

On July 7, at NYBOT, a panel of experts will bring cotton producers up to date on the latest cotton fundamentals and provide an outlook for the future and pricing strategies for cotton producers.

Special guest speaker at the event is Joe Nicosia, president and CEO, Allenberg Cotton Co., Memphis. Other panelists include O.A. Cleveland, professor emeritus, Mississippi State University, Carl Anderson, Extension specialist emeritus, Texas A&M University, Jarral Neeper, vice-president, marketing, Calcot, Mike Stevens, Swiss Financial Services and Pat McClatchy, executive director, Ag Market Network.

Larry Ward, a cotton and peanut producer from Atmore, Ala., was one of a dozen or so cotton producers attending the Cotton Forum in New York City last year. He said the mock trading session “was a great learning experience.”

As for real trading in NYBOT’s cotton pit, which is open from 10:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m., Monday through Friday, Ward said, “It gives you a feeling for where the market is heading that day. You instantly know what’s going on in the market.”

Yazoo City, Miss., producer Rob Coker, who raises cotton, corn and soybeans, said the Cotton Roundtable “gave me a first-hand look at the market conditions and where prices were headed.”

The mock trading session “was very enjoyable and made me realize I’m glad I’m a producer and not a trader. It’s amazing that they can think on their feet as quickly as they do.”

“Growers know what happens to an order between them and the broker,” said Pat McClatchy, executive director of the Ag Market Network, a sponsor of the event. “But they don’t know how it’s processed when the order comes in to New York, how it gets into the hands of the broker and the bidding and offering that goes back and forth.

“Farmers have told us that the No. 1 area where they need help is in marketing,” McClatchy said. “The more educated a farmer can be in the area of marketing, the better off he'll be.”

There is still time to reserve a place on the roster. But space is limited. Call McClatchy at 1-888-795-8071 for registration or more information.

You don’t have to be in New York to listen to the Cotton Roundtable. The meeting will be broadcast live on the NYBOT Web site at http://www.nybot.com and by teleconference to the Ag Market Network listening audience. The program will also be carried by KFLP radio, which covers the west Texas area. It’s also available live at http://www.kflp.net, on a 10-second delay. Questions for the meeting will be accepted from the listening audience.

An archive of the roundtable will be available at http://www.nybot.com and http://www.agmarketnetwork.net. The Cotton Forum is sponsored by the New York Board of Trade, Certified FiberMax, Cotton Incorporated, Ag Market Network and Farm Press Publications.