Over the past 3 years, with the increasing price of wheat, corn, rice and other grain crops, cotton planting area has been losing step by step. In 2 years, the planting area has decreased by 14 million mu.

Though the end of last year

Cotton growing model village gradually disappearing

Li Xiuli, a farmer breeder in the Seven Mile Camp Town of Xinxiang City, Henan, looks very green with the red bud cotton. Not far from the experimental field stands a white sculpture of Mao Zedong.

In 1958,

Today's Seven Mile Camp, except Li Xiuli's experimental field, has rarely seen cotton in the surrounding farmland.

Li Xiuli, who has not been to a regular university but bred 8 new cotton varieties, told the first financial daily: "before and after 1998, after the popularity of genetically modified insect resistant cotton, more than 10 thousand acres of arable land in the whole village, the cotton planting area once reached 8000-9000 acres, and now the cotton planting area in the village has been reduced to only more than 1000 mu due to the reduction of grain and cotton price difference."

Industry insiders, Henan is one of the main production areas of China's cotton, cotton in the province

In Zhu Chen Village, Lujiang County, Anhui, Zhao Yinsheng, 54, planted 14 mu of cotton in 2008, and reduced it to 9 mu in 2009. This year only planted 5 mu.

In Zhu Chen Village, the basic image of the reporter is the leaf green rice, while the dark green leaves are Interplanted in the paddy field.

Wang Xiaojian, general manager of Lujiang Seed Co., Ltd. said: "Lujiang's cotton planting area is about 80 thousand mu this year, less than 30 thousand -4 mu in previous years."

Industry researchers said that around 1984, the cotton planting area in the whole country once reached 120 million mu. In recent years, the cotton planting area has decreased year by year, and now it is reduced to about 75 million mu.

National Bureau of statistics data show that in 2007 the national cotton output 7 million 600 thousand tons, in 2008 the annual cotton production reduced to 7 million 500 thousand tons, in 2009 further reduced to 6 million 400 thousand tons; from the cotton planting area, according to the China Cotton Association data, 2007-2009 years, the national cotton planting area successively is 88 million 891 thousand and 500 mu, 86 million 311 thousand and 500 mu, 74 million 250 thousand mu, 2009 cotton planting area compared with 2007, reduced by more than 14 million acres.

Researchers say cotton planting area is more than 80 million acres in the safety zone.

Hard to serve cotton

Chinese farmers are abandoning cotton planting because of rural hollowing.

Lv Yanhu, a 63 year old cotton farmer in the Seven Mile Camp Town, told reporters: "cotton is difficult to serve. From April to October every year, when fertilizer and medicine are not stopped, it takes time and effort.

Lv Yanhu's complaint is similar to that of Zhao Yinsheng, a 54 year old cotton grower in Anhui province. Zhao Yinsheng said, "it takes 25 jobs to plant cotton. One day is a job, and only 5 jobs are done in rice. My family used to grow 14 mu of cotton. At that time, my wife could help me. Now that I have grandchildren, my wife needs to bring children. I can't help myself, but I can only grow 5 acres of rice."

Wang Xiaojian also told reporters that now the rural labor force is 50-60 years old, or women and children, like the outdoor weather of nearly 40 degrees Celsius in early August, cotton farmers also get the cotton seedlings. If they do not see them one day, they may get pests, and the elderly women will not be able to eat. Cotton harvest can only be picked by hand, unlike wheat and corn, which can be mechanized.

Lv Yanhu said that the second reason farmers are unwilling to grow cotton is that they grow more and more efficiently.

This year, the prices of rice, wheat and corn rose sharply compared with that of last year. Taking wheat as an example, the purchase price was 1 yuan per catty, at least 0.1 yuan higher than last year. Lv Yanhu said that his family had 4 acres of land and used to grow cotton. In addition to the 4 mu land of his family in 2009, he also rented 8 mu of land. However, only 2 acres of cotton were planted this year, and the rest was mainly wheat and onion.

Lv Yanhu said that this year's net income of wheat per mu is about 600 yuan, and the onion can yield 8000-10000 Jin per mu. The price has risen from 0.3 yuan per kilogram this year to 0.6 yuan per catty. The net income of onion per mu is still more than that of wheat. According to the price of 3 yuan per cotton seed cotton per kilogram, the sale of 2 acres of cotton flower is just able to break even.

Lv Yanhu also told reporters that the output of wheat and corn is getting higher and higher. Before the yield of an acre of wheat was only 200-300 Jin, now an area of 1000 catties can be collected. The output of cotton has not changed much in recent years. When the pgenic insect resistant cotton is popularized, it can receive 360 kilograms of cotton per mu, and now the average yield is 250-300 kilograms.

Lv Yanhu said that wheat and corn were also saved and no pesticides needed to be frequently applied. Transgenic cotton needed less pesticide at the beginning. But now pests are gradually adapted to produce pgenic cotton. Although pgenic Bollworm Resistant Cotton Bollworm has been inhibited, another pest is more and more harmful to cotton.

Feng Hongqiang, an expert on plant protection at Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that in the areas where the bug is more serious, farmers will have to fight dozens of pesticides a year to prevent them.

However, Feng Hong Qiang also said that the bug is still in a state of control, and farmers hope that the new pgenic cotton will be able to resist pests such as blind bugs on the basis of the original cotton bollworm.

In addition to the increase in grain income, Professor Zhou Taohua of Anhui Agriculture University pointed out that the state has many subsidies on grain varieties, while cotton only has one fine subsidy, and the subsidy per mu is only 15 yuan. Taking rice as an example, farmers can get subsidies for comprehensive grain subsidies, comprehensive subsidies for agricultural production, subsidies for fine varieties, large grain subsidies for households, and subsidies for raising rice industry in Anhui. The sum of subsidies per mu adds up to 60-70 yuan.

Zhou Taohua said that there is a minimum purchase price system in the rice country, which provides the bottom for farmers to sell grain, but cotton has no minimum purchase price protection. Seed cotton fell to 1.8 yuan per catty in the previous few years, and now it rises to the level of 3.6-3.7 yuan per catty. Compared with grain, its attraction is not high.

Lv Yanhu said that before the price ratio of cotton and grain was between 12:1 and 8:1, farmers would like to grow wheat in this interval. For example, the price of wheat is now 0.9 yuan per catty, according to the lowest cotton price of 8:1, the price of cotton should be about 7 yuan per catty, but now only 3 yuan is up and down, and cotton grain price ratio is seriously unbalanced.

Worries of seed companies and textile companies

To reduce farmers' growth, farmers are the first to bear the brunt of cotton seed research and development and sales companies.

Li Xiuli set up a Henan Colin Seed Industry Co., Ltd. as chairman of the board in order to cultivate cotton seeds.

In Li Xiuli's office, in addition to all kinds of certificates for cotton medals, a cordon on the wall was also placed on the wall to become the strategic alliance unit of the wheat production and operation unit of the Yan 4110 exhibition and Yumai 18-99, which shifted part of its energy to wheat breeding and sales.

Li Xiuli said his company has annual sales of over 10 million yuan, but more than half of its revenue comes from wheat seeds, and cotton seeds accounted for more than half of its sales a few years ago.

Li Xiuli said, now that wheat seeds can earn a penny, and then subsidize cotton seed cultivation, otherwise cotton seed cultivation is difficult to sustain.

Li Xiuli faced the same predicament as another large cotton seed company.

The company executives said that they were one of the first companies to introduce genetically modified insect resistant cotton in the domestic market. In recent years, due to the sharp reduction of cotton planting area in China, the sales of cotton seeds dropped greatly. In 2009, the sales of cotton seeds in the company were about 100 tons, and sales were not enough.

Hearing that farmers have cut down on planting cotton, Changzhou's JD printing and dyeing Co., Ltd., general manager of strong state, has been silent on the phone for a while.

The monthly report of China Cotton Association in July 29th pointed out that as the textile industry recovered, the demand for cotton increased, the gap between production and demand increased, and cotton prices rose sharply. By the end of June, China's cotton price index (CC Index328) exceeded 18000 yuan / ton, and the total price rose by 3400 yuan in the past six months. The average price was 16116 yuan / ton, up 34.6% over the same period last year.

Wang Yingzhi of Suzhou Yi kale Textile Co., Ltd. believes that a large reduction in cotton planting area will certainly boost the demand for foreign cotton.

According to statistics from the Ministry of agriculture, the import volume of cotton reached 1 million 723 thousand tons in 1-6 months in 2010, an increase of 1.2 times compared with that of the previous year, and the import volume was 2 billion 810 million US dollars, up 1.9 times compared with the same period last year.

According to the above data, the average price of imported cotton per ton is US $1 thousand and 631, equivalent to RMB 11 thousand yuan / ton, which has an advantage over domestic cotton in terms of price.

Although cotton prices are likely to rise, Zhao Yinsheng has little interest in growing cotton. He said: "my son and daughter-in-law don't want to cultivate land. I'm too busy to work alone."