Xinjiang sees bumper cotton harvest this year

URUMQI, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has seen a bumper harvest of cotton this year, with machines doing over 80 percent of the picking work, authorities said.

The cotton harvesting work this year has almost been completed in the region, and the total yield is expected to reach 5.2 million tonnes, 39,600 tonnes higher than that of last year, according to the regional department of agriculture and rural affairs.

The quality is also much higher compared with last year.

Thanks to the high cotton prices since mid-September, cotton farmers are expected to reap an average net income exceeding 22,500 yuan (about 3,530 U.S. dollars) per hectare this year.

The department estimates that machines have performed over 80 percent of the cotton-picking work, with the northern part of the region reaching nearly 100 percent of mechanized harvesting.

The cotton and textile industry is one of the pillar industries in the region. Figures show that the cotton output of Xinjiang, the country's largest growing area for the crop, accounted for 87.3 percent of China's total in 2020.