Cotton planted area falls steeply in Xinjiang

27 Oct '09

2 min read

Cotton-growing area in Xinjiang, China's largest cotton producing region, reached 20.156 million Mu (one hectare=15 Chinese Mu), down 19.4 percent over the previous year, cotton output is expected to achieve 2.37 million tons, down 21.3 percent year on year.

According to the statistics from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Xinjiang is the largest cotton-producing region in China and its cotton planting area accounts for one-third of the total cotton plantation in the country for many years.

Since the last several months, garment and textile exports are on a downslide, due to which demand for cotton has weakened, leading to apprehensions amongst cotton farmers of Xinjiang, which in turn has lowered the area of planted cotton crop.

In addition, Xinjiang has also had to deal with a series of natural disasters this year. 2.45 million mu of cotton fields suffered drought, of which 120,000 mu of planted cotton were totally wiped out and some areas experienced different levels of hail in July, leading to a another loss of 210,000 mu cotton harvest.

According to Agriculture Department of the autonomous region, Xinjiang has decided to lower its cotton acreage to less than 20 million mu in five years from 2008 onwards, then further reduce the area to 16 million mu in another five years.

But at the same time, the major cotton producing province, will maintain its total cotton production in and around 2-2.5 million tons by using the advantage of new technology to improve cotton yields.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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