Member Directory
Member of the Month: Plains Cotton Cooperative Association
Since its creation in 1953, PCCA has grown to become the largest handler of U.S. cotton, marketing millions of bales annually. In addition to cotton marketing based in Lubbock, Texas, PCCA also owns a denim mill in Littlefield, Texas, a denim apparel manufacturing facility in Guatemala, and cotton warehouse operations in Altus, Okla., Big Spring, Texas, Frederick, Okla., Liberal, Kan., Memphis, Texas, Rule, Texas and Sweetwater, Texas.
Just as its founding fathers envisioned, each division plays an important role in PCCA's overall mission: to add significant value to the cotton marketed for our members by being the supplier of choice to our business partners in terms of quality, service and value.
PCCA was founded in 1953 by a group of visionary farmers on the Texas High Plains who were searching for a way to achieve the best possible price for their cotton. As a result of new technologies and the development of innovative, aggressive marketing strategies, PCCA has grown to be one of the largest cotton marketing organizations in the world.
The cooperative's first significant growth occurred in 1963 when cotton producers in the Texas Rolling Plains and Southwest Oklahoma invited PCCA to offer its cotton marketing services in their respective areas. Consequently, PCCA built warehouse facilities at Sweetwater, Texas, and Altus, Oklahoma, to store and market cotton produced in those regions. Additional growth occurred four years later when PCCA acquired small marketing cooperatives in Corpus Christi and Harlingen, Texas.
With a growing membership bringing more cotton to sell, PCCA constantly explored better ways to market its members' crops. In search of a more efficient way to reach more cotton buyers, PCCA joined with three other U.S. cotton marketing cooperatives in 1971 to form AMCOT, a centralized "shopping center" for the world's textile mills. The establishment of AMCOT benefited the coops and their members by consolidating their sales offices in a number of U.S. and foreign cities.
In 1975, PCCA introduced electronic cotton marketing with the development of TELCOT™, one of many innovations that have characterized the cooperative's history. Another significant event at PCCA was acquisition of the American Cotton Growers denim mill at Littlefield, Texas, in 1987. The acquisition also gave PCCA members access to pool marketing, an alternative to the TELCOT marketing system.
Another geographic expansion occurred in the mid-1990s when PCCA offered its marketing services to cotton producers in Central Texas. Soon after that, cotton production began to expand in Southern Kansas, and again, PCCA responded to those producers marketing needs.
PCCA's founders could not anticipate how widespread their influence would be or that the entire cotton industry would feel their impact. It requires many hands to move cotton from field to fabric, thus many people have been involved in the expansion of PCCA and its services. Today, PCCA continues down the path of innovation, cutting‐edge technology and resourceful marketing to add more value to its members' cotton.
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NCFC membership is made up of many of the largest regional and national agricultural cooperatives from around the country. They range from supply cooperatives, to farm credit banks, to marketing cooperatives handling a diversity of commodities. We also count among our membership state and regional councils of cooperatives, as well as many local supply cooperatives.