Machinery / Industrial Parts & Tools

At present, it is the cotton picking season in Xinjiang. A set of domestic cotton pickers are busy picking cotton in the vast cotton fields. In recent years, the domestic cotton picker industry has continuously improved its independent innovation ability, persistently promoted the localization of cotton pickers, and domestic brand cotton pickers such as China Agricultural Machinery, Boshen and Wode have gradually become the main force of cotton harvesting in Xinjiang, gradually getting rid of the problems such as the high price of imported cotton pickers and the high harvesting cost, greatly improved the level of cotton harvesting mechanization, and provided important equipment support for the high-quality development of the cotton industry in Xinjiang, Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.

Gradually increase the market share

Du Shanmin from Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, is engaged in machinery leasing services in Xinjiang. This year, he spent more than 2.18 million yuan to buy a 2022 three row cotton picker baler in Bosheran, Xinjiang. "This year, the operating cost of cotton picking machine is 260 to 280 yuan per mu. One cotton picker can pick more than 200 mu of cotton a day, and one person can pick less than half an mu of land by hand. Now there is a large demand for cotton picking machine in the local area, which has already picked more than 3000 mu, and it is estimated that more than 8000 mu can be picked this year." Du Shanmin said.

The world cotton looks at China, and the Chinese cotton looks at Xinjiang. China has become the world's largest cotton consumer and the second largest cotton producer. Xinjiang is the country's largest production base of high-quality commodity cotton. The cotton planting area and output account for more than 80% of the country's total, and the cotton machine picking rate has reached 81%. It is the region with the highest level of cotton picking mechanization in China. This year, more than 7400 cotton pickers have been put into Xinjiang, an increase of nearly 1000 compared with 2021, which can fully meet the demand for cotton pickers. "In recent years, under the guidance of the national agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy, Xinjiang's cotton machine picking rate has rapidly increased, forming a replacement for manual cotton picking. This is also the fundamental reason for the reduction of Xinjiang's cotton picking army." Said Wang Li, dean and professor of the School of Economics and Management of Shihezi University in Xinjiang.

According to the Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report, the cotton picker market in Xinjiang has long been monopolized by imported cotton pickers such as John Deere and Kesnew Holland. In recent years, with the investment and production of cotton pickers by domestic enterprises such as modern agricultural equipment, Boshiran, Changzhou Dongfeng, Swan Shares, Xingguang Agricultural Machinery, China Railway Construction Corporation, Ward Agricultural Machinery, the market share of domestic cotton pickers has gradually increased, gradually breaking the monopoly of imported cotton pickers. In 2018, the sales volume of domestic cotton pickers exceeded that of foreign brands for the first time, and then the sales volume of domestic cotton pickers rose rapidly. In 2020, the sales volume of domestic cotton pickers reached 84%, significantly ahead of that of imported cotton pickers. The gap in sales volume in the past two years is gradually expanding, and the replacement rate of domestic cotton pickers is getting higher and higher. "In terms of the current market holding, the imported cotton pickers are still the main body of cotton pickers in Xinjiang. However, as the sales gap of cotton pickers expands and old cotton pickers are scrapped, the holding of domestic cotton pickers will gradually increase and eventually exceed the imported cotton pickers." Wang Li said.

Compared with imported cotton pickers, the biggest advantages of domestic cotton pickers are low price and high cost performance. Domestic cotton pickers are mainly three row cotton pickers, with prices ranging from 900000 yuan to 1.3 million yuan, and six row cotton pickers range from 2 million yuan to 2.5 million yuan. Imported cotton pickers are mainly six row cotton pickers with high price and good performance, with the price ranging from 5 million yuan to 6 million yuan. However, the imported cotton picker has been deeply cultivated in the Xinjiang market for many years, and has the advantages of "high picking efficiency, strong reliability and wide after-sales service". Cotton farmers have formed dependence on foreign brands. With the rapid improvement of the quality of domestic cotton pickers, there is no big gap between the picking effect and the reliability of imported cotton pickers. The domestic brands have withstood the test of the market and gradually gained the trust of cotton farmers. "At present, the 3-row low-end box type cotton picker is almost a domestic brand. On the 6-row packaged cotton picker, the sales of domestic brands are far ahead, especially breaking the monopoly of the imported large-scale high-end cotton picker market." Pi Jinyan, the marketing planning director of Xinjiang Bosheran Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd., said that Huacheng's import and export data observation report.

Localization still needs to be accelerated

Cotton picker is a key core equipment for mechanized cotton harvesting, and is a weak and weak industry in China's agricultural machinery manufacturing industry. In 2008, the five row cotton picker produced by Xinjiang Shihezi Guihang Agricultural Machinery Equipment Co., Ltd. began to be put on the market in batches, and the localization of cotton picker achieved a breakthrough of zero. Although your airline later withdrew from the cotton picker market, your airline's spark has now become a prairie fire. In recent years, with the encouragement and support of the state, the manufacturing of domestic cotton pickers has achieved rapid development. Seven enterprises engaged in the production of cotton pickers are Swan Co., Ltd., Bosheran, Xingguang Agricultural Machinery, Modern Agricultural Equipment, Railway Construction Heavy Industry, Changzhou Dongfeng, and Wode Agricultural Machinery. A strong industrial chain is rapidly forming around the whole cotton picker.

Compared with some conventional agricultural machinery products, cotton pickers are technology intensive and information intensive agricultural machinery equipment with high added value. The R&D and manufacturing threshold is high. The entrants need to have strong capital, strong manufacturing capacity, technology integration capacity, strong marketing and service capabilities, etc. "On a global scale, the cotton pickers have formed a North American camp represented by John Deere and Kesnew Holland of the United States and a Chinese cotton picker camp represented by Bosran, Railway Construction Heavy Industry and Swan Co., Ltd. If the North American camp is the first pole, the Chinese cotton picker corps is the second pole in the world." Put Jin Yan said.

From the functional division, the cotton picker is divided into box type cotton picker and packing type cotton picker, which is developing from box type cotton picker to packing type cotton picker in China. At present, most domestic agricultural machinery manufacturing enterprises mainly produce three rows of low-end box type cotton pickers, while enterprises mainly focusing on Ward and Bosran invest in the production of six rows of high-end packaged cotton pickers. Compared with the box type cotton picker, the packing type cotton picker realizes the integration of picking and baling, and directly packs the picked cotton into bundles, which not only improves the cotton picking efficiency, but also effectively solves the problem of low picking rate of fallen cotton, saves the procedure of secondary packaging of cotton, and improves the working efficiency by 25% to 30%. "Compared with foreign brands, the performance of domestic cotton pickers is basically equivalent to that of foreign brands. The reliability of packaged cotton pickers is relatively poor, and other aspects are basically comparable to that of foreign brands. The main reason is that they started late and lack of technology accumulation and precipitation. I believe they can reach the international level in the next year or two." Zheng Bin, general manager of Xingguang Agricultural Machinery, said.

"From the current point of view, Xinjiang has a large proportion of imported cotton pickers and a high degree of dependence on imported accessories, which must be attached great importance." Wang Li said. In recent years, the United States has constantly provoked trade frictions against China, prohibited the export of core technologies to China, stigmatized and sanctioned Xinjiang cotton, and the shortcomings of Xinjiang cotton harvesting mechanization have become more prominent. China urgently needs to realize the localization of cotton picker and its core components to cope with various measures that the United States may implement.

Innovation and R&D seize the commanding heights of the industry

In any industry, all dividends will eventually be leveled by competition. Only through R&D innovation can profit margins be created. With the rapid rise of domestic cotton pickers, in order to realize the substitution of domestic machines for imported machines and stand out in the global competition, we must constantly increase research and innovation efforts, constantly promote the technical upgrading of cotton pickers, and introduce more competitive products with higher technical content to the market. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.

From the research and development history of cotton pickers in China, since the 1950s, domestic cotton pickers have gone through three stages of introduction, imitation and self research, realizing the development process from scratch, from low-end to high-end. After years of accumulation and rapid development in recent years, domestic agricultural machinery manufacturing enterprises have constantly overcome difficulties, new products are emerging, and more and more core parts have been localized.

In fact, the research and innovation of domestic cotton pickers has been on the way. Wu Haihua, Minister of Science and Technology of CAAMS, said that cotton picking system, cotton conveying system, cotton gathering and cotton molding system are the core working parts of cotton picker. In recent years, our country has overcome the technology of extending the life of core components such as cotton picking finger, cotton stripping tray and water brush in cotton picking system, meeting the demand of production and application, developing efficient cotton picking head, and improving the operating efficiency by about 20%.

The rise of China's domestic cotton pickers has intensified the competition in the global cotton picker market. International giants such as John Deere and Kesnew Holland have continuously improved the technology of cotton pickers, and domestic cotton pickers must speed up the pace of catching up. Wu Haihua believes that in the future, domestic cotton pickers should focus on the major needs of cotton pickers, take integrated large-scale demonstration applications as the traction, improve efficiency, ensure reliability, and improve the rate of autonomy as the goal, solve the "weaknesses" of core technologies, improve the ability to tackle key core technologies, and provide equipment support for the high-quality development of China's cotton industry. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.