When Prime Minister Hawke returned from his recent trip to Washington he was full of confidence that America would avoid putting subsidised products onto Australia's overseas markets. Yet the United States has continued under the provisions of its U.S. Farm Bill to cut the ground from beneath Australian producers' feet. There have been subsidised sales of wheat to North Yemen, rice to Papua New Guinea, and barley to Saudi Arabia, sales which Australian farmers say prove that America doesn't have their interests at heart when disposing of its agricultural surpluses. The latest industry to fall victim to the U.S. Farm bill is cotton. Export prices have fallen by a third since the current crop was planted and just last week there was the announcement of mass retrenchments by Australia's largest cotton company. As Jeremy Thompson reports, the picturesque cotton harvest now winding up in New South Wales hides a much troubled industry.