Turkey cotton – ing on high price, Brazil may be tempted
Latest reports indicate that farmers in Turkey cottoning on take advantage of multi-year high prices. They are switching from corn to cotton in their second corn harvest. It is not a big producer of corn – as production is likely to be marginally lower in 2017-18 marketing year. Usually it plants corn as a second harvest on the same land in parts of the country.
In southeast region of Harran, wheat was planted as the first crop, but farmers are switching back to cotton over corn for the second crop, the report said.
Cotton prices have hit multi-year highs in recent weeks prompting speculation among the trade that Brazil’s farmers could also be tempted into switching to cotton and cutting the corn crop – the crop from which most of Brazil’s corn exports are drawn.
The latest update of ICAC showed cotton production estimated at 25.4 million ton due to increased area. Production in US is expected to increase 25% to 4.7 million ton, while India remains the world’s largest producer with forecast at 6.2 million ton. Production in Turkey is estimated to grow 18% to 829,000 ton.
According to the ICAC, global cotton consumption is expected to grow with a lower international price from previous season and the rising price of competing fibers. Global cotton demand is expected to increase 3% in 2017-2018 to 25.2 million tons. Mill use in China is expected to remain stable at 8.1 million tons, while India and Pakistan are expected to increase 3% and 4% respectively. Moderate growth of 2-3% is expected for other major consuming countries of Turkey, Bangladesh and the US, ICAC estimated.
Turkey ranked eighth in world yarn exports, worth US$ 1.6 billion in world exports in 2016. Italy, Belgium and UK are the largest markets for Turkey, together accounting for 26% of totals yarn exports. The other major yarn markets include Iran, Netherlands, Portugal and Germany.
The most exported yarns in Turkey is synthetic filament/fibre yarn, valued at US$605 million, sharing 37% among the related product group of yarn exports.