Machines complete 80% of cotton picking in China's XUAR in 2021
Machinery cotton pickers replaced manual labour to complete four-fifths of cotton picking in the harvest season in 2021 in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), the country's largest cotton-producing region, according to data from the Regional Agricultural Mechanisation Development Centre.
According to the centre, more than 6,300 machinery cotton pickers are in service in Xinjiang.
This year, Xinjiang's cotton growing area is about 37 million mu (about 2.46 million hectares). With the comprehensive use of modern agricultural machinery such as cotton pickers, the region's cotton farming has bid farewell to the intensive use of manual labor, official Chinese media reported citing the centre.
Cotton output in Xinjiang topped 5.1 million tonnes in 2021, accounting for about 90 per cent of the country's total and maintaining its first rank in China for over two decades.
