Judging from the survey, cotton sowing in Xinjiang has entered its peak period since mid-April, and it is expected that sowing in most cotton areas will be completed before the end of April. Farmers in Xinjiang have reported that the main features of spring sowing in 2021 are high land contract fees, large increases in agricultural input prices, and fast sowing progress. The proportion of cotton seeds in various districts and counties is “one main and one auxiliary” or “one main and two auxiliary”. This year Xinjiang cotton continues to make great achievements in improving cotton quality, reducing labor costs, and focusing on efficient harvesting and processing. Some ginners in Xinjiang believe that with the proportion of machine-picked cotton planting in the three major cotton areas in southern Xinjiang exceeding 80%, it is expected that not only the harvest period of Xinjiang cotton will be further shortened in 2021, but also the acquisition and processing will be more concentrated and efficient, and competition among cotton companies will also increase. It’s more intense.
As to whether the cotton planting area in Xinjiang will increase or decrease in 2021, multiple surveys show that the intended planting area this year will increase steadily and slightly, with varying degrees of increase. The National Cotton Market Monitoring System’s national cotton planting intention survey in mid-to-late March showed that China’s intended cotton planting area in 2021 was 45.426 million acres, a year-on-year decrease of 256,000 acres, or 0.6%. A survey by the Xinjiang Development and Reform Commission in January 2021 showed that the Xinjiang Autonomous Region’s cotton planting intentions in 2021 increased by 1.45% year-on-year. The China Cotton Association’s survey on cotton planting intentions of designated farmers in Xinjiang in March showed that the cotton planting intention area in Xinjiang cotton areas in 2021 increased by 0.61% year-on-year, and the increase was 0.88 percentage points smaller than the previous period.
Judging from the author’s recent visits to farmers in Aksu, Kashgar and Kuitun, Xinjiang’s cotton planting area is still showing a steady and slightly increasing trend in 2021, but the increase in planting intention is indeed higher than in 2021. The decrease in January and February of this year was mainly due to the increase in prices of farmland contract fees, chemical fertilizers, mulch films, water and electricity fees, etc. The following factors are the main reasons why cotton planting area is easy to increase but difficult to decrease:
First, Xinjiang farmers’ income from cotton planting in 2020 is still higher than that from grain and other cash crops, from 2020 to 2022 The target price of cotton in Xinjiang is 18,600 yuan/ton. Compared with other cash crops, the income from cotton planting is stable, reliable and low-risk; secondly, after the Spring Festival, domestic corn, wheat and other prices bottomed out, and the competition for land between grain and cotton has weakened. Third, due to excessive groundwater consumption and insufficient winter precipitation in recent years, irrigation water in Xinjiang’s cotton areas has become increasingly tight, and cotton has strong drought and alkali resistance. Fourth, with the acceleration of land transfer in southern Xinjiang, machine-picked cotton cultivation has been fully promoted. Cotton planting, harvesting, and selling are becoming more and more labor-saving. Fifth, the planting area of red dates, melons, pears, apples, etc. in some areas of southern Xinjiang has shrunk, which is conducive to the expansion of cotton planting. </p
