Industrial Cluster: Cotton Planting Status Of The National Cotton Market Monitoring System This Year

In order to further understand China's cotton planting intention in 2025, the national cotton market monitoring system will conduct a nationwide cotton planting intention survey from late March to early April 2025. The sample involves 14 provinces (autonomous regions), 46 counties (cities, regimental farms), and 1700 designated information contact households. The survey results show that in 2025, the intended cotton planting area in China will be 43.763 million mu, with a year-on-year increase of 1.5%, and the growth rate will be 0.3 percentage points lower than that of the previous period. Among them, the intended cotton planting area in Xinjiang will be 38.904 million mu, with a year-on-year increase of 2.6%, and the growth rate will be 0.6 percentage points lower than that of the previous period. The details are as follows:

1、 Intended planting area of main cotton producing areas in 2025

The intended planting area of northwest inland cotton area is 39.109 million mu, with a year-on-year increase of 2.6%, and the growth rate is 0.5 percentage point lower than that of the previous period. Among them, the intended planting area in Xinjiang is 38.904 million mu, an increase of 2.6% year on year, 0.6 percentage points lower than the previous period.

The intended planting area of cotton in the Yellow River basin is 2.532 million mu, a year-on-year decrease of 12.9%, 1.0 percentage point narrower than the previous period. The intended planting area of each province (city) decreased year on year, with the year-on-year decrease of 18.2%, 11.7%, 5.3% and 2.2% respectively in Henan Province, Tianjin City, Hebei Province and Shandong Province.

The intended planting area of cotton in the Yangtze River basin is 1.779 million mu, a year-on-year decrease of 7.1%, 0.9 percentage points lower than the previous period. Among them, the intended planting area of Jiangsu Province remained the same year on year, while that of other provinces decreased year on year. The year-on-year decreases of Hubei Province, Hunan Province, Anhui Province and Jiangxi Province were 10.0%, 7.0%, 6.0% and 3.8% respectively.

2、 Reasons for changes in intended planting area

According to the survey, because the cotton planting income in Xinjiang last year was more advantageous than other major crops such as corn, wheat and tomato, although the domestic cotton price has continued to weaken recently, under the guarantee of the cotton target price policy, cotton farmers are still willing to expand their planting in the new year. In addition, all parts of Xinjiang still need to implement the task of grain planting this year, and the overall increase of cotton area is relatively limited.

The intended planting area of cotton areas in the Yellow River basin and the Yangtze River basin in the mainland has further declined, and the decline of cotton areas in the Yellow River basin is greater than that in the Yangtze River basin. According to the investigation

It was found that the average household land size in the mainland is small, and the field management required for cotton planting is more labor intensive than other crops. In recent years, the young and middle-aged labor force in the mainland has decreased, and the traditional cotton farmers are aging, accelerating the decline of cotton planting intentions. In addition, in recent years, the number of ginning plants in the mainland has decreased significantly, which makes it difficult to sell cotton. Most of them use the method of selling cotton directly from the land to cotton vendors, and the purchase price of seed cotton is low. Last year, the weather in some areas was first waterlogged and then dry, the yield of seed cotton was low, and the purchase price of cotton continued to be low, which led to poor cotton planting income and adversely affected the intended planting area of cotton in the new year.