China’s cotton industry faces severe development challenges 09-20-2016

Researcher of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, has long been engaged in the scientific study of corn and agricultural development strategy research. With extensive theoretical knowledge and practice experience, Mr. Tong acts as a senior consultant for both government departments and non-government organizations.

 


Source: Baidu


Twenty years ago, China imported pest-resistant genetically modified (GM) cotton in order to increase yield and income for farmers and reduce pesticide usage amount to improve the ecological environment. However, nowadays, China’s cotton industry faces severe development challenges. Minor pests strike cotton fields heavily, pesticide consumption doubles, the quality of cotton fiber drops and the cotton planting area shrinks dramatically.

 

1. Heavy strike by minor pests

 

In the 1990s, as bollworm struck the cotton field in North China widely and heavily, farmers in Shandong and Anhui provinces began to grow pest-resistant GM cotton. Since then, pest-resistant GM cotton has gradually dominated the industry, from the Yellow River Plain Region to the Yangtze River Plain Region. Nowadays, about 95% of the cotton fields in China are occupied by pest-resistant GM cotton, with only a few fields in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region for non-GM cotton.

 

However, according to a 10 years’ research by experts in GM research such as Wu Kongming from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the planting of GM Bt cotton in China has caused severe problems. The quantity of some minor pests such as cotton mirids surges and these pests strike the cotton fields more and more heavily, harming the ecological environment severely.

 

According to experts’ analysis, as the quantity of cotton bollworm has been essentially controlled, the quantity of piercing-sucking mouthparts pests such as cotton aphid, mirids, spider mite, whitefly and thrips soared. Minor pests have become major pests and they struck the fields heavily, leading to yield reduction or even crop failure in some regions in China.

 

2. Increasing consumption of pesticides

 

As farmers had to spray highly concentrated insecticides to kill those minor pests, natural enemies of cotton bollworm such as spiders, lacewings, ladybugs and oophagous trichogrammae were also killed. As a result, the second-generation cotton bollworms spread like wildfire and farmers had no choice but continued to enlarge the usage amount of insecticides, worsening the ecological environment.


In addition to the heavy strike by non-targeted pests, the unprecedented occurrence of “supper weed” also threated the safety of the ecological environment in fields, leading to increasing consumption of pesticides.

 



3. Inferior quality of cotton fiber

 

On the China Textile & Clothing Technological Forum held on 11 Aug., 2016, Yao Mu, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering reported: “The sterility rate of cottonseed of conventional cotton was only 1%, but nowadays, that of pest-resistant GM cotton has already increased to 12%, according to my research in 47 pieces of cotton fields in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region last year. This will lead to a decline in cotton yield and inferior quality of cotton fiber.”


The planting of pest-resistant GM cotton has led to many problems, such as:  


- Inferior quality of cotton fiber compared with that from conventional cotton. The fibers were short and rough;
- The lint percentage (the transition rate of cottonseed into lint) presented downward trend and even dropped to a level lower than that of conventional cotton;
- Conventional cotton seeds were largely reduced or polluted and scientific research on conventional cotton was marginalized.

 

4. Sharp decline in cotton planting area

 

China is one of the largest cotton planting countries, consuming countries and importers. Since 2000, China’s cotton planting area has begun to decline. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture of the People’s Republic of China, the total cotton planting area in the county shank from 5.93 million ha (88.89 million mu) in 2007 to 4.86 million ha (72.73 million mu) in 2010 and to 3.43 million ha (51.49 million mu) in 2015. The figure is very likely to further reduce to 3.10 million ha (46.50 million mu) in 2016.


Over half of the cotton planting area in the Yellow River and Yangtze River plain regions was cut. In particular, in Dezhou City, Shandong Province, once had a cotton planting area of about 200,000 ha (3 million mu), but in 2013, its cotton planting area reduced to 75,300 ha (1.13 million mu) and in 2015, the figure dropped to 28,700 ha (430,000 mu) only.


According to the 2015 Compilation of Costs and Profits of Agricultural Produce, all Chinese major cotton producing provinces suffered losses and the national average profit/cost ratio of cotton planting dropped to 30.13%.


On 17 April, 2016, the China Central Television reported the survival challenges of cotton growers in Xiajin County, Dezhou City, Shandong Province. They need more pesticides to control pests and reap sliding profits from growing cotton. Some even lose about USD59.89 (RMB400) by growing one mu of cotton (1 ha = 15 mu).


Since the introduction of pest-resistant GM cotton, China’s cotton industry has faced many development challenges and China has begun to rely on imported cotton more. According to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China, China’s import volume of cotton accounted for about 25% or even over 50% of the country’s total yield. In 2015 when the inventory of domestically produced cotton was huge, China imported 1.48 million tonnes of cotton. Large amount of imported cotton has hit the domestic industry severely.

 

Author: Tong Pingya

This article expresses the personal view of the author, but not CCM’s.

 

This article comes from Seed China News 1609, CCM

 



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Tag: insecticides seed cotton

 

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