Skip to main content

Xinjiang: Switch From Cotton to Hay

With a surplus of cotton and falling prices, Chinese officials have cut their target price for this year's cotton crop and are urging farmers in the major production region to shift cotton acreage to wheat or hay.

The 2015 target price for cotton in Xinjiang Autonomous Region has been set at 19,100 yuan/metric ton. This is the target for the crop to be planted this spring and harvested in fall of 2015. 

The subsidy is based on the difference between the target price and the market price. As of April 3, 2015, market prices for cotton lint in Xinjiang ranged from 12,950 to 14,200 yuan--depending on the grade--far below the target price.

The target price for the 2014 Xinjiang cotton crop was higher, at 19,800 yuan. The subsidy for the 2014 crop has just been distributed and totaled 450.5 yuan per mu (about $441 per acre).

Agricultural officials in Xinjiang say the target price pilot program allows market supply and demand to be the main guide for setting the cotton price. However, the officials are giving the market some assistance by issuing a guidance plan calling for cotton farmers to reduce cotton area planted this spring by 4,665,000 mu (769,000 acres). They recommend shifting land to spring wheat or hay in low-yielding or drought-prone regions.

The guidance appears to be an implementation of a structural adjustment campaign launched by the Ministry of Agriculture earlier this year. According to the communist party secretary of Xinjiang's agriculture department, the "temporary reserve" policy that supported cotton prices during 2011-2013 "stabilized" cotton area but it kept some low-yielding areas in production. Now they want to "improve" the crop structure in the region.

The party secretary said farmers giving up cotton (and presumably giving up the fat subsidy) have two choices: plant spring wheat or hay. Those who plant spring wheat are assured they will get the "general input subsidy" and "improved seed" subsidy for wheat plus a subsidy for water-conserving irrigation. The shift to hay is part of a plan to develop a hay-livestock industry (this was an emphasis of the Ministry's structural adjustment plan). Xinjiang officials plan to increase area planted in hay by 10 million mu (1.65 million acres) over five years. A detailed plan for the hay industry is in preparation.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Xi Jinping's Doctoral Thesis

Xi Jinping is the vice president and presumed next president of China but little is known about him. In this post the dimsums blog offers its contribution to the genre of Xi Jinping-ology by conveying Xi's decade-old views on agricultural markets. Ten years ago Xi Jinping wrote a thesis, "Tentative Study of Agricultural Marketization" (中国农村市场化研究) for a Doctor of Law degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a top breeding-ground for Chinese officials. The dimsums blogger has spent several hours poring over the 200-plus page tome to see what it reveals about Dr. Xi. The thesis is remarkably close to what China has been doing lately in agricultural policy, suggesting that Xi (or the person who actually wrote the thesis) has a major say in policy or is at least in agreement with what's being done. There is nothing adventurous, controversial (or insightful) in the thesis. It seems to be the work of a wonkish technocrat who is not prone to talk out of turn or wander from...
15 comments
Read more

Divergence in U.S. & Chinese egg prices

High egg prices are a hot topic in the United States. China, in contrast, has a glut of eggs and depressed prices.  The March 14, 2025 USDA Agricultural Marketing Service weekly eggs market overview reported that U.S. egg prices continued declining during the second week of March as the supply situation improved. No significant highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks have occurred in March and U.S. egg demand is relatively light. The average U.S. wholesale price for Grade A large white eggs was $4.15 per dozen, down sharply from their February peak.  Until 2021, Chinese and U.S. wholesale egg prices had been roughly equal at about $1-to-$2 per dozen with no trend. U.S. prices fluctuated more than Chinese prices, so the U.S. price was sometimes higher, sometimes lower than the Chinese price after converting them to dollars per dozen.  Chinese prices converted using monthly exchange rate and assuming 0.6 kg per dozen. Sources: USDA and China Ministry of Agricult...
Post a Comment
Read more

China's Corn & Wheat Imports Down 97% From Last Year

China's first customs data for 2025 feature a 97-percent decline in corn and wheat imports from a year earlier. Soybean imports were up slightly by volume (but down in value), and dairy, pork, poultry, and seafood imports rebounded year-on-year. Life was less sweet in China with a 93.7% decline in sugar imports, and drinking appears to be up as wine and beer imports posted gains.   China's agricultural imports for January-February 2025 were down 14.7 percent from a year earlier. The value of farm and food goods imported for the first two months of 2025 totaled $30.7 billion, down $5.26 billion from the same period in 2024. China's exports of agricultural products during January-February totaled $15.2 billion, up $393 million from a year earlier.  Data from China Customs Administration website. As usual, soybeans were the largest component of China's agricultural imports during January-February 2025 with a value of $6.3 billion. Meat imports were valued at $4.1 billion, ...
2 comments
Read more