Domestic cotton prices have rebounded sharply since October last year, and the enthusiasm for sales in the cotton market has been unprecedentedly high. However, the purchase price of seed cotton has not followed the increase in lint cotton prices. In the past years of production, marketing and circulation practice, cotton production, supply and marketing are an industrial chain-type community of interests. Under normal circumstances, when the price of commodity cotton rises, the price of seed cotton and even cotton-related products such as cotton accessories and clothing will follow suit. Nowadays, the price of spinning cotton is rising, but the seed cotton purchase market is extremely deserted.
The author analyzes the following three reasons. First, the national preferential subsidy policy provides guarantee for cotton planting in Xinjiang, and domestic cotton planting gradually moves from the mainland to Xinjiang and other western regions. At present, Xinjiang’s cotton area output is stable and rising. The cotton planting area accounts for 80-90% of the country’s total cotton planting area. However, the planting area of traditional main cotton producing areas in the Mainland, such as the Yangtze River Liucheng and the Huanghuai River Basin, only accounts for 10%. About %, some major cotton counties and key areas have basically said goodbye to cotton production.
Second, due to reasons such as the “aging” of mainland cotton farmers, the “fragmentation” of planting areas, and the “decentralization” of procurement and processing, the cotton planting area in the mainland has been decreasing year by year since 2013. As young and middle-aged people from rural areas move to cities to work, small radio broadcasts in rural areas are replaced by advanced integrated media. Older cotton farmers are unable to grasp the information on the rise and fall of cotton in a timely manner to make sales plans, and can only sell seed cotton step by step.
Third, the scale of acquisition and circulation is insufficient, and the advantage of cotton planting in the mainland has been further weakened. Although the cotton planting area in the mainland has declined, from a national perspective, the mainland still accounts for about 15% of the country’s cotton production. These scattered production areas can now only rely on cotton merchants traveling in remote rural areas to come to purchase or be purchased by agents, and then sell them in batches to local small mills or out-of-town cotton operating companies. This situation has resulted in fewer ginneries in the surrounding area. The cotton purchase and sales system in the mainland has gradually withdrawn. The variety and quality of cotton have also been lost. As a result, the actual interests of producers have also been difficult to guarantee. </p
