Turkmenistan farmers ready for cotton harvesting
On 30 August, three provinces of Turkmenistan - Ahal, Lebap and Mary – will launch cotton harvesting. The cotton growers of the northern Dashoguz province will join the major agricultural campaign in a week, on 6 September.
This year the country’s farmers are targeted to gather 1 million 50 thousand tons of raw cotton. In March 545 thousand hectares of farmland were sown with 65 thousand tons of seeds of medium-fiber and fine-fiber cotton.
Medium-fiber sorts such as “133”, “Yoloten-7”, “Dashoguz-120”, “Serdar”, “S-4727”, “Yoloten-39” are cultivated in all cotton-specializing regions, and the fine-fiber “Yoloten -14” grows in Mary and Ahal provinces.
The average yield of cotton from one hectare of land in Turkmenistan varies from 19.3 to 20.2 centners.
According to the state news agency TDH, 156 procurement stations are perfectly ready for the arrival of “white gold”, to be processed at 38 cotton ginneries into cotton fiber.
One ton of raw cotton can produce up to 320 kg of fiber, 650 kg of seeds,10 kg of 4-5 mm-long short lint fibers.
The strategic importance of cotton lies in the fact that this branch of crop production is the raw material base of the export-oriented textile industry. So, in H1 of 2017, the export of textile materials has grown by 14.8% compared to same period last year. The cotton fabrics, taking into account that its export has gone up both in physical volumes (170%) and in value terms (160.2%), became the driving force for the increase of gross textile export.
Foreign businessmen regularly purchase lint, raw cotton, cottonseed oil, raw fatty acids of cotton soap stock, fiber, terry products, cotton fabrics, yarn, denim through the State Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange of Turkmenistan.
Recently, during the regular legislative session, the parliament of Turkmenistan has approved the Law of Turkmenistan "On cotton growing", designed to become one of the most important instruments for regulating relations, arising from the turnover of raw cotton and cotton products. The deputies believe the adoption of this document will encourage further progress both in cotton growing and in other related branches.
