Texas Tech, USDA sign historic agreement

Texas Tech and USDA-AMS Cotton and Tobacco partner on a new, high tech cotton classing facility.

Shelley E. Huguley, Senior Editor

July 2, 2019

Monday, July 1, 2019, Texas Tech University and the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Cotton and Tobacco Program (C&T) signed a cooperative agreement to allow C&T to construct, own and operate a cotton classing facility on Texas Tech's campus in Lubbock, near the Rawls Golf Course.

“The significance of this agreement is huge,” says Deputy Administrator Darryl Earnest, USDA-AMS Cotton and Tobacco. “This is unprecedented, which is very exciting.” He says while USDA is the world leader in cotton classification and standardization, the new facility will allow USDA to use state-of-the-art technology to test aspects of cotton that haven't been tested other places, "and keep pushing that bar up on what we do in the accuracy of fiber testing."

Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec and USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Greg Ibach, signed the historic agreement in the courtyard of the Bayer Plant Science Building. U.S. Reps. Jodey Arrington and Mike Conaway delivered remarks at the event along with participating in the ceremonial groundbreaking. Several in the cotton industry, from growers to ginners to researchers, were on hand to witness the event as well.

To hear more from Schovanec, Earnest, Ibach, Conaway and Arrington, along with cotton grower and Plains Cotton Growers President Stacy Smith, about the significance of this agreement and the benefit of the state-of-the-art facility to cotton, Texas Tech, agriculture and Lubbock, watch this video.

For more information about the event, see Texas Tech, USDA to bring cotton classing facility to campus

To hear what Conaway had to say about trade with China and what Plains Cotton Growers has been up to on behalf of farmers, view Congressman gives trade update, PCG President talks about 2019 crop

About the Author

Shelley E. Huguley

Senior Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

See more from Shelley E. Huguley

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