My experience has been the cotton will stay good that long. I germinate mine by placing it in a baggie & spritizing it  it germinates in a couple of days. I then plant it out. I had trouble getting it to germinate in soil, so my method would not be good for mass planting. You might also post on the "Growing from Seed" forum.

Cotton is grown commercially here, and where the soil is heavy, seedlings cannot break through it if there is significant rain after seed is planted. Sometimes machinery can break up the crusted soil enough to allow the seedlings to emerge.

Cotton is an interesting plant, but is subject to attack by a number of insect pests, so you need to watch for them. When it is hot, thick 'nectar' seeps from leaf joints and attracts bees and wasps. The nectar is not particularly sweet considering how thick it is. If cotton is grown commercially near where you live, you may face restrictions on growing it at home. Here, there are regulations on destruction of harvested plants in fall to prevent overwintering pests, for example.

I have raised it here for curosity. It matured only the bottom third of the bolls before frost.