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