Our first stop of the day was Next GINeration Inc., a cotton gin owned by four local farmers in Pratt, Kansas. Cassie, the office manager who also manages marketing, and David, the general manager, welcomed us to the facilities. In 2015 the local gin went out of business and was purchased in partnership between the four farmers. This was as an economical decision, as today, building a gin of the same capacity would cost ~$25 million. We began our tour of the gin with David, he walked us, step by step through the ginning process from accepting the bales, through the drying and separating processes, and ultimately to packing and bagging of finished bales. Following this Cassie walked us through the USDA grading program and marketing services provided to the farmers by the gin.  

Cotton can be harvested by two main methods: stripping and picking. The Next GINeration facility processes only stripped cotton, which is more affordable but less efficient. Stripper machines cost US$ 850,000 and yield 2.5 bales of lint per round bale, while picker machines are priced at US$ 1,000,000 but produce a cleaner bale, generating 4 bales of lint per round bale. This gin requires more filtration processing for final product. 

As cotton harvest begins in mid-October, the gin operates 24 hours a day with 30 seasonal employees across two 12-hour shifts. Next GINeration processes for ~30 producers, 70% of which are within 10 miles of gin. Producers can decide between shipping their own cotton to the gin, for which they are paid, or the gin contracts through a third-party trucking company to pick up and deliver bales for producers who don’t want to manage their own trucking. Bales are processed in the order in which they are harvested and received by the gin. These operations continue 7 days a week until the year's harvest is fully processed, aiming to finish ginning in mid-February. Due to the seasonality of these operations, the gin relies on seasonal workers, some of which travel as crews from south-to-north with the cotton harvest. Many of these employees take on alternative work in the offseason (spring/summer) in industries such as construction. 

The bales are unwrapped where the plastic is compressed into bales and sent to China for recycling. The cotton then proceeds through a tower drier where moisture is brought down to 5.5% with forced hot air. This moisture content is ideal for separating the cottonseed and cleaning the lint. From here the cotton runs through a series of separators which removes the seed and trash (i.e., leaf litter). The gin runs the cotton through the separators as few times as possible, the more separation runs the cleaner the final product, but this increases damage to the lint and reduces the USDA grade. Essentially there is a fine balance between maintaining lint quality and minimizing trash in the finished bale. From here the cleaned cotton lint is rehydrated to 7% moisture using high pressure steam, as specified by the USDA graders, and then pressed into 500 lbs finished bales which are bagged and sent to a third-party storage warehouse.  

Cassie showed some insight on the logistics on marketing of the finished lint bales. After processing, farmers have the option to sell right away or store bales in a third-party renting facility.  Cassie connects producers to buyers and most of the bales are sold through direct buying. Producers are paid by the PCCA grading chart looking at components such as colour, length, maturity and uniformity. The cotton plant is virtually wasteless as all byproducts are used within the agricultural sector.  The Gin buys the cotton seeds to resells at a higher price point to offset the ginning. The seeds have a high protein and fat content and are sold to dairy and catfish producers as well as oil mills. The other byproducts are the burrs containing the sticks, leaf litter and dried bolls, and motes which are lower quality lint with some debris. Burrs are resold as roughage and bedding and motes are used for manufacturing hygiene products such as cotton swabs.  

The second stop of the day was at Royal Dairy LLC, Kyle the managing partner of the corporation talked us through the ins and outs of their operation. Their operation consists of a milking herd of 6,500 Holstein cows, and 7,000 dry, and young stock all raised in a dry lot facility. The milking system this farm utilizes is a double 60 parallel Germania parlour where each cow is milked twice daily. The milk extracted in the parlor is cooled below 36 degrees Fahrenheit and pumped directly into tankers awaiting transport. This parlor is in operation 23 hours of the day split into two twelve-hour shifts conducted by primarily foreign labour. The 100-person work force at Royal dairy is made up of primarily Latin American workers with a 92% employee retention rate. 

Royal Dairy LLC is owned by a collection of 5 shareholding partners. This operation produces approximately 90% of the roughage used in their rations on acres that are either owner or rented. The annual rainfall in this region is around 19 inches, this is not adequate amount of precipitation to yield a reliable source of forage. To mitigate this issue, they utilize center pivot irrigation systems. All commodities in the animal’s diet, including by-products from other agricultural industries, are bought in from foreign sources. Utilizing byproducts from other agricultural sources helps reduce the cost of the diet as well as making “waste” products into something of value. A few examples of the byproducts used on farm are corn gluten, soy hulls, and cotton seed from places like the cotton Gin we toured earlier in the day.  

On the reproductive and genetic side of the operation, Kyle selects sires based on traits that are most desirable for the housing facility, longevity, and production of the animal. The majority of the younger cows in the herd are bred with Holstien female sexed semen, where the older cows in the herd are bred only to beef to produce an Angus Holstien crossed calf. The reason behind using these two breeding methods in unison is to raise an adequate amount of replacement cows as well as having a having a higher market value, and more desirable animal to input into the beef industry.  

When replacement calves are born at Royal Dairy, they are fed an adequate amount of colostrum and are shipped at a suitable age to a calf ranch 3 hours away in Texas where they are raised for 4 months then return to Royal dairy. From the age of 4 months to 390 days old they are in a heifer raising program designed to maximize growth. Once the animal reaches 390 days they are bred using sexed semen, after their first calf they enter the lactation group where they begin their milk producing stage.  

Once the milk is collected in the parlor and loaded onto the tankers it is shipped to various processing facilities that have contracts with the Dairy Farmers of America (DFA). The DFA is a farmer owned cooperative that organizes logistics for transporting the milk from farm to processing facilities 

Biologically dairy cows produce manure. This manure is a valuable byproduct of the operation that is used to fertilize and increase the yields of the crops used to feed the animals. Unlike most dairy farms at home that produce liquid manure, this style of housing produces 70,000 tonnes of dry manure.  

All in all, day 6 was a very educational and entertaining day, making stops at Next GINeration Cotton Gin in Pratt, the world famous Dodge City for Lunch, and the Royal Dairy located just outside of Garden City, where we retired for the night. Many thanks to our amazing hosts today, looking forward to our next stop tomorrow.