China's cotton yield drops further in 2015: report

China's cotton yield decreased 574,000 tonnes in 2015 as the growing area in the world's largest cotton producing nation dropped amid low profitability and new government policies, the state media reported today.
Cotton yield in the world's second largest economy decreased 574,000 tonnes, or 9.3 per cent, year on year to 5.6 million tonnes, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Last year, the cotton growing area went down 423,400 hectares, or 10 per cent, to 3.799 million hectares, in China, said Hou Rui, senior statistician of the NBS.
The Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin went down by about 17.8 per cent and 14.8 per cent, respectively, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The relatively low profitability of cotton and the government's abolishment of its "temporary purchasing policy" to prop up prices were to blame for the declining cotton growing area, said agronomist Pan Xiufen.
China will remain a big consumer of cotton due to its large population, growing income and increasing export demand, the ministry of agriculture said, adding that the shrinking growing area would result in a supply gap in the cotton market.

While most parts of China saw cotton growing area and yield down, northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was growing more.
In 2015, Xinjiang, home to half of the country's cotton growing area, produced 3.5 million tonnes of cotton, accounting for 62.5 per cent of China's total, compared to 59.5 per cent in 2014, NBS data showed.

Cotton yield per hectare in Xinjiang stood at about 1,840 kilograms, 24.6 per cent higher than the national average.
China's cotton yield peaked in 2012 at 6.84 million tonnes, more than 2.2 times than that of 1978, official data showed.