Loss of Chinese Cotton Quality Contains Industrial Development

"Can not find cotton that meets the demand of our products." "A lot of cotton can't be sold." ... This box is a market with no backlog of cotton, which is a textile company that is struggling to find quality cotton all day long. The reason is that "the inherent quality index of cotton fiber is poor." The problem of cotton quality has seriously affected the sustainable development of China's cotton industry. Raising the quality of cotton, establishing the “China Cotton” brand, and grasping the right to speak in the market are becoming the consensus and direction of the industry. This not only requires the industry to start from the terminal R&D breeding, but also includes the joint efforts of production planting, acquisition processing, and warehouse inspection. It also requires us to calm down, recognize the status quo of China's cotton quality first, and then apply the right medicine to the disease to be effective.

The increase in production can not make up for the lack of quality

If you want to ask, what are the most outstanding problems facing the development of China's cotton industry? "Upgrading cotton quality" is bound to be one of them. The lack of high-quality lint, the poor quality index of cotton fiber, and the high content of foreign fiber are issues that need to be solved in China's current cotton quality construction.

From the data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics, it can be seen that from 2008 to 2014, the cotton planting area dropped from 86,311,500 mu in 2008 to 63.286 million mu in 2014, and cotton production from 7.49 million tons to 6.161 million tons. China's cotton yield It increased by 12% and Xinjiang increased by 6.9%. The increase in the yield of cotton in China not only increased the income of cotton farmers, stabilized the cotton market, but also basically met the domestic textile demand.

However, the stability and improvement of cotton production did not improve the inherent quality of cotton. Data from the China Fiber Inspection Bureau shows that the proportion of high-grade cotton (grade 1+2, or color-grade white cotton 11+21) before the release of the cotton market is 40.75%. However, from the data of 2008-2012, the proportions of high-grade cotton in China and Xinjiang are 13.01% and 18.30%, respectively, which are 68.07% and 55.09% lower than the normal years before release; White cotton 11+21 cotton In 2014, it was 7.6% lower than in 2013 and Xinjiang was down 20.66%. The average length of cotton in 2008-2014 decreased by 0.56mm across the country, while that in Xinjiang fell by 0.61mm; the average regularity fell by 0.08% in the country, and that in Xinjiang decreased by 0.18%; the average micronaire value (A+B) fell by 12.63% nationwide, and Xinjiang declined. At 8.33%, the average Fracture Strength ratio fell by 0.79cn/tex across the country, and Xinjiang dropped by 0.82cn/tex. The average rolling quality (P1+P2) dropped by 2.62% throughout the country, and Xinjiang dropped by 2.98%.

Concentration of fiber lengths is difficult to meet textile demand

At the third meeting of the China Cotton Association, the person in charge of the China Fiber Inspection Bureau pointed out that with the continuous improvement of cotton quality supervision and cotton certification inspection in recent years, the level of cotton quality has been greatly improved, but there are still some long-term. Since the issue of cotton quality, which has been reflected more prominently, has not been effectively solved, it is still the main issue that restricts the further improvement of the quality level of cotton in China. Among them, the problems of high heterosexual fiber content and seed cotton blending are particularly prominent.

At present, China mainly produces fine cotton, and Xinjiang has a small amount of long-staple cotton. Most of the length of fine cotton fibers grown in China is about 28mm. The varieties of imported cotton include coarse cotton, fine cotton and long-staple cotton. The fiber length covers 23mm-38mm, and the high micronaire value can reach 7.0. Strong choice.

It is understood that in 2014, cotton production in the Northwest Inland Cotton Region of China will account for more than 70% of the total cotton production in the country, but most of the cotton has a fracture strength below 28cN/tex, and some even at 24cN/tex. Restricted the spinnability of China's cotton, can not meet the needs of China's textile enterprises to produce high-grade textiles. The breakage strengths of Australian cotton, Indian cotton and some American cotton are all above 31cN/tex, and the rupture strength of West Africa cotton is also above 28cN/tex. The production of cotton yarns of more than 60s requires more than 31mm of cotton fibers. If the use of long-staple cotton increases the cost significantly, textile companies only use 1-7/32 Australian cotton or MCU5 Indian cotton; in order to reduce costs, the production of high-grade Air-spun cotton yarns have to use imported cotton of 23mm-26mm in length, such as India's V797.

In recent years, machine-picking cotton has become a trend in order to reduce cotton planting costs and improve the mechanization of cotton cultivation. However, some textile companies in Xinjiang said that the acquisition of machine-made cotton, because the continuous use of a large number of growing cotton Mulch Film, waste film was blown to the top of cotton plants, so that the processing of the lint contains small scrap plastic film serious problem. Then for some cotton mills that need to receive strict orders for dyeability, only imported cotton such as Australian cotton, American cotton, and Brazilian cotton are selected. "Three wires" has become the biggest quality issue for Chinese cotton.

“China's cotton is not only a single species, but there is still a gap between cotton quality and international cotton, and it cannot meet the needs of many varieties of cotton mills.” In the words of Zhao Li, the cotton procurement manager of Esquel Group, the cotton farmers are to produce spinning mills The demand for cotton can only be achieved in a seamless manner with the textile companies only when the production and marketing are in line.

"Three-wire" problem becomes a "push hand" with low quality

Poor quality of cotton in China is not unrelated to its planting and harvesting methods.

According to reports from some processing companies in Xinjiang, at present, China's cotton cultivation is still based on individual rural households as the basic planting subject. Cotton farmers harvesting cotton mainly rely on manual harvesting. After harvesting, cotton is generally stored at home after outdoor drying. Then according to market conditions, choose to focus on sales. In this production process, cotton farmers do not use cotton bags when harvesting cotton. Most of them use plastic woven bags. Farmers' plastic woven bags are generally used repeatedly. Some of the worn-out bags are sewed and some are crispy. For continued use, the plastic rope dropped from the broken plastic woven bag is easily mixed into the seed cotton. When cotton farmers spread seed cotton outdoors, due to the limited environmental conditions in the countryside, the surrounding ground poultry, livestock hair and other debris can easily be blown to the cotton. In the process of manually picking, drying and finishing cotton, the cotton farmers' own hair is more likely to fall into the cotton. Therefore, if the cotton farmers can not pick carefully before selling the seed cotton, the cotton will have more or less mixed with some of the opposite fiber such as plastic rope, hair, poultry, domestic hair, etc., and the heterosexual fiber mixed into the cotton is completely picked clean. It is very difficult.

Lu Huaiyu, vice president of the China Cotton Association, said that in the current international and domestic economic situation, the whole industry chain is in a tight life. How to reduce production costs is the primary issue for cotton farmers. Machine-picking cotton is a means to reduce production costs. It is a problem to be solved that can both increase the degree of mechanization of cotton production without damaging the cashmere length of cotton.

At present, improving the quality of cotton is a matter of no delay. However, this is not a simple matter. It not only needs policy support, but also needs to reach a consensus on the production of high-quality cotton in the upstream and downstream industries, popularize the concept of improving cotton quality in the aspects of seed production, planting, acquisition, processing, warehousing, and inspection, and build from all links in the industrial chain. Cotton quality.