COTTON
Ginners Marketplace COTTON FARMING IS THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE GINNING INDUSTRY.
Food Safety Rules Could Affect Cotton Gins On Sept. 10, 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released new rules that could directly affect cotton gins across the country by next year. Most people don’t think of cotton gins as producers of food, but since 2003, cotton gins have been required to register with the FDA as a producer of food for animals. We call it feed; FDA calls it animal food. Under a couple of different acts of Congress, first in response to the 9/11 attacks and then as a result of an ongoing effort to better protect the American people from foodborne illnesses, producers of food for both animals and humans have been subject to FDA rules and inspection. Until last month, the most a gin had to do was register, renew every other year and maintain records of who brought them cotton and who they shipped cotton seed to. A few gins would get inspected each year, but there was relatively little disruption or real impact to the industry. The new rules developed as part of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) have the potential to change that. Cotton gins are an extension of harvest. We’ve been treated as such by many different agencies and in their rules for decades. As such, all we do at the gin is separate the seed
from the lint. The lint is the primary product, and the seed is a bonus. Many gins ship seed directly to a mill while others hold some for a period of time and ship out periodically to dairies around the country. Our seed is stored and shipped very similar to grain at a grain elevator. Under the new rules, cotton gins are treated differently from elevators. Elevators, as we understand it, are exempt from some key portions of the new rules. The number of hoops that they have to jump through are minimal – very similar to the past with the biggest burden being recordkeeping – something they are already doing. For some reason, cotton gins are treated differently. We are still trying to understand FDA’s justification for the different treatment, but as it stands, gins will have to do a hazard evaluation and develop and implement plans to
FOR SALE COMPLETE 3/116 GIN PLANT Including:
PARMER COUNTY COTTON GROWERS PO Box 842 • Farwell, TX 79325 806-825-3701 Craig Rohrbach crorhbach@pccgcoop.com
2323
COTTON COTTON FARMING FARMING NOVEMBER NOVEMBER 20152015
Cotton Ginners Marketplace
• 1-3 pad Beltwide Traveling head module feeder • 1-Murray 96” Incline • 1-96” Horn Rescuer 4000 Factory • 2-Murray 72” 7 cyl I/C • 1-Murray Hi side 72” 7 cyl I/C • 3-Consolidated 66” Feedmaster • 3-Lummus 116 saw gin stand • 3-Ziph Controller • 3-CMI Super Jet • 3-Moss Gordin 66” standard lint cleaners • 1-54”Battery Condenser • 1-Continental Double Box UD Press Factory w/1 pump (Bespress) • 1-Murray 52” V.S. separator w/ vacuum • 1-International C-30 mote press