Xinjiang Province Seeks to Reduce Cotton Acreage
Source: globecotnews Date: 2008-01-09
China 's Xinjiang Province is often compared to the San Joaquin Valley of the U.S. due to its diverse and rich agricultural production mix. Xinjiang, like California, has mountains with heavy snowfall, but its agricultural production depends on irrigation supplies. The most arid region of the province is the Tarim Pendi Desert; however, a very rich agricultural production zone has developed along the desert rim. As production of all crops in the province has expanded, so has the competition for water resources.
Cotton has been a very important cash crop for the Xinjiang Province; however, as China's food requirements rapidly expand, it now faces increased competition with demand for food and grain crops. Cotton has also negatively impacted the local environment. These conditions have now become a focus of the provincial government. For the first time, the Xinjiang provincial government and the chairman/party secretary of Xinjiang have indicated that the province needs to stop its expansion of cotton acreage and devote more space to grains and food crops.
Over the past several months, there has been an effort to develop reliable statistics on Xinjiang cotton acreage and production. The data used over the past few years has long been questioned, but speculations came to the forefront last season when it became obvious that actual cotton production was far above the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and local provincial estimates. A series of conferences have been launched to explore the exact statistics.
The Xinjiang Rural Conference was held this week. One of the key speakers was Wang Lequan, Party Secretary of Xinjiang, which means the situation has received serious attention from the government. In his remarks, it was stated that 2007 cotton production was 2.7 million tons, up sharply from 2006 official estimates (this is below unofficial 2006 production estimates of over 3.0 million tons). Total planted acreage in 2007 was 1.7 billion hectares or 25.7 million mu, which was far above the NBS estimate of just over 20.0 million mu and up from the 1.666-million hectare estimate by the local statistics bureau. The significance of this is that official cotton acreage has far exceeded the government target for the province that was set at 20 million mu or 1.333 million hectares.
The overexpansion of cotton acreage is reported to have disrupted the region's agriculture and damaged the development of local grain production. Secretary Lequan stated that the province would now work to halt the expansion of cotton acreage and promote a reduction to a goal of 20 million mu or 1.133 million hectares with a cotton production target of 2.5 million tons. The acreage should instead be switched to grain and livestock production. This decision would be very significant for cotton production in China. Globecot Research has long thought cotton acreage in East China had peaked and would continue to shrink. Other than yield improvement, the growth in Chinese cotton production has been concentrated in Xinjiang. In 1991, cotton production in the province only totaled 639,000 tons; and by 1998, it more than doubled to 1,400,000 tons and then doubled again to over 3,000,000 tons in 2006/07. This means this expansion has ended and that production should consolidate at 2.5 million tons, which will increase China's annual cotton import requirements by approximately 600,000 tons.
