China's Agriculture Ministry aims to cap cotton output at 5.8 million tonnes this year as it wants farmers to plant more grain to offset years of falling production, the ministry and industry officials said on Monday.
The ministry plans to limit cotton acreage in 2004 to around 5.3 million hectares in China, the world's top cotton consumer, it said in a report posted on its Web site (www.agri.gov.cn), versus last year's 4.47 million hectares.
But the market expects this year's cotton area to exceed the ministry's planned acreage, and foresees output at more than six million tonnes because of raging demand from the textile sector, industry officials say.
"Although the ministry would like to see farmers planting more grains because of output falls over the past few years, many would still prefer sowing cotton because of strong prices of the commodity," said an industry official.
China produced 430.6 million tonnes of grains in 2003, the lowest harvest in 13 years and 5.8 percent less than 2002, according to official figures.