Cost and economic benefit of cotton in Xinjiang

Cotton,as a staple farm produce next to grain in its importance,is a main economic crop in Xinjiang agriculture.The development of the cotton industry not only concerns the farmer's living and the employment of textile workers in Xinjiang,but also concerns the foreign exchange earnings in this region,thus playing an important role in the development in its integrative economy and society.Since 2008,however,influenced by the climate of the international economy,the domestic cotton market has been in new situations: on the one hand,with the speeding export of textile commodities slowing down,the price of cotton can hardly stay erected.On the other hand,the prices of agricultural materials booming up,the cost of cotton growing have increased drastically,resulting in the declining income of cotton growers.Statistics show,since 2007,the acreage of cotton growing in Xinjiang has been decreasing,thus threatening the region's cotton supplies.The cost of cotton production directly affects the profit of cotton growing,the income of the cotton growers and the development of cotton industry.Then,how is the cost of cotton growing and its economic profit from the micro perspective of a cotton grower? What elements outcome significant from the investment in fertilizer,seeds,plastic mulching,manual work,pesticide,farming machine,irrigation,etc.It is of practical significance to the healthy development of the cotton industry in Xinjiang to get sufficient knowledge of what constitute cotton cost,how to balance the proportion of every element concerning the integrative cost,and how to calculate the cotton cost.It is also of great importance to the income increase of cotton growers and to the competiveness of Xinjiang's cotton in the international market to study how the market price forms and what functions the cost can do to the price.This paper takes the cotton in the north and south of Xinjiang as the study subject and the statistics of the study come from the cotton production cost of 182 cotton growers in 2009.These growers are divided,for the study convenience,into three different groups: affluent,middle and insufficient according to their income level from cotton growing.Based on the cost amount invested in cotton growing by the growers in the north and south of Xinjiang and the present economic benefits from the cotton industry,the paper established a module of measurement and calculation,analyzed the statistics gathered from the factual growers and demonstrated the relationship between the main production factors and the production values from the different groups of cotton growers of different districts in Xinjiang.The implications from the study are as follows:(1) the cotton growing acreage and the investment in chemical fertilizer bring about positive results to the three groups;(2) the investments in cotton seed,the number of labor employed and materialized labor brings about negative affects the three groups;(3) the two elements: the cotton growing acreage and the investment in chemical fertilizer positively affect their income in both the south and north of Xinjiang;(4) the investment in cotton seed positively affects the beneficial results in the south of Xinjiang,but negatively affects the benefit results in the north of Xinjiang;(5) the number of employed by the southern cotton growers negatively affects the production value while the affection is not obvious to the northern growers;(6) the investment in materialized labor results in positive effect to southern growers but negative to northern growers though the effects are not obvious;(7) the investment in chemical fertilizer affects not obviously the production value both in the north and south of Xinjiang.The paper ends up with measures and suggestions including the enhancement of controlling the costs,the overall arrangement of optimizing cotton production,and the realization of efficient producing cotton.The original quality of the paper lies at the research perspective,aiming at the area of the south and north of Xinjiang,classifying cotton growers according to the districts of the south and north in Xinjiang and their economic situations,and comparing horizontally their production costs and beneficial results by the analysis of the micro data collected from the actual investigation of the cotton growers.This comparison is supposed to be better to measure the advantages of different districts of cotton produce and to optimize the overall arrangement of cotton production.