URUMQI: On a bright and clear Friday afternoon, a total of 14 cotton-picking machines were lining up in cotton fields spanning 100 hectares in Shaya county, Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. With a brisk whistle and folk songs being played, the 14 pickers started roaring and moving forward at the same time – marking the start of a month-long bumper harvest season of Xinjiang’s pure, white cotton that thousands of locals sing and dance to celebrate.
In such a cheerful mood, it is hard to imagine that half a year ago, cotton production in Xinjiang was at the center of a storm created by Western slander and boycotts. During the harvest season, people can see the humming of cotton-picking machines, drone sprayers flying high in the sky, and internet-of-things modules for planting on trial – among all mechanization and intelligent agricultural measures applied, serving as the best piece of evidence debunking the “forced labor” claim hyped by some Western politicians and revealing how such claims are a lie.
The comprehensive mechanized rate of cotton farming and production in Aksu Prefecture- an important cotton producing base in Southern Xinjiang which accounts for 90 percent of China’s long-staple cotton output – has reached over 90 percent this year, which greatly elevated both cotton farming efficiency and yields, local officials said at a press briefing on Friday.
Xinjiang’s mechanized rate of cotton picking will exceed 75 percent this year, with an output estimated at 5.2 million tons. Xinjiang represents more than 85 percent of China’s cotton yield.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
