The Strategic Importance of Cotton Production for the World and Türkiye

Abstract

Cotton can be grown in a wide variety of geographical regions worldwide. It is a valuable crop as it contributes positively to the economy of the regions and countries with its wide range of use, added value and employment opportunities. Beyond its being just an agricultural commodity, cotton has strategic importance for Türkiye where there have been ideal regions for cultivation. Growing interest in natural fiber and rising living standards increase the demand for cotton. In this study, in addition to the general information on cotton crops and their cultivation, explanations and interpretations were made on production and trade particularly in Türkiye and trade generally in the world for this crop based on the recent cotton production and trade data.

1. Introduction

Agriculture continues to be the basic sector to meet the primary needs of human beings. It is also of very importance regarding the economic development of the countries and raising the general welfare level. This sector has been considered the cornerstone of the economy for many years, yet the developments in the industrial sector in recent years have begun to be interpreted as the shift of importance from agriculture to industry. This interpretation can be acceptable, especially for technology-producing developed countries, but it is open to discussion for developing countries like Türkiye.

Considering its high agricultural production potential, and a significant share of industry based on agriculture, the importance of this sector becomes more obvious for Türkiye. Human nutrition, food security, resource transfer to industry and income distribution features of agriculture come to the fore to consider it as a strategic sector [1].

The branches of industry that process agricultural raw materials in Türkiye consist of two main groups, the food and the textile industries, which are included in the manufacturing industry. Sugar, vegetable oil, flour, canned food, milk, meat and beverage industries are the sub-categories of the food industry as cotton thread, wool yarn, cotton and woolen weaving are the sub-branches of the textile industry [2].

The increasing world population has affected the food sector as well as many other sectors. The ever-increasing needs due to the change in living standards have also led to an increase in interest in the textile sector. The fact that cotton is the basic raw material of the textile industry in Türkiye as in the world, increases the importance of this crop day by day.

Parallel to an upward shift of public awareness on artificial fiber pollution and its damage to the environment due to their long lifecycle in nature; especially in recent years, the rise in demand for cotton, the largest natural fiber source, has caused the market share of cotton to increase again.

Cotton is one of the main agricultural crops widely grown and traded in the world [3]. Plant height varies between 80 and 120 cm and boll branches are separate, it is a tap-rooted plant with a long flowering and harvesting period It is an annual crop with an effective root zone depth of 90 cm and can be grown under warm climate and irrigated conditions [4].

Mainly four cotton species (Gossypium hirsutum, Gossypium barbadense, Gossypium arboretum and Gossypium herbaceum) are grown worldwide. Gossypium hirsutum, also called upland cotton, makes up of more than 90% of the global cotton production and 99% of the Turkish cotton production. Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) have a high yield potential, a medium-long vegetation period with a ginning percentage of about 39% [5].

Due to the deterministic effect of climate cotton is grown generally in the Southeastern Anatolia, Aegean and Mediterranean regions in Türkiye. The lint percentage of seed cotton (lint plus seed) is about 35–40% and the rest is the seed. The oil content of cottonseeds varies between 19 and 28%. Although cotton is generally grown for its fiber, cottonseed oil ranks fourth after soybean, rapeseed and sunflower in terms of world oil production. It also ranks second after soy as a plant protein source [6].

The price elasticity of demand for cotton is lower than that of other industrial crops due to its wide range and frequent use.

With the advancing technology, cotton fiber is used in textile industry, linter is used in paper, furniture and cellulose industry, seed is used in seed oil industry, and pulp is used in feed industry [7]. For that reason, it not only has a high commercial value but also has a high employment potential globally because it has a number of by-products suitable for creating added value [8]. Moreover, it is stated that it can be an alternative to petroleum in the long run due to increases in its use in biodiesel production in recent years. Despite its various uses cotton remains a fiber crop in general. According to 2018 data, cotton constitutes 81% of world fiber production [9].

2. World cotton production

As earlier mentioned, cotton is one of the most important agricultural products widely grown and traded in the world. Approximately 3% of the total cultivation areas of developing countries are devoted to cotton farming.

It is a cash crop with which millions of farmers worldwide can meet the cash needs to satisfy their basic necessities. The income generated from this crop makes great contributions to the welfare level of rural households, especially in developing countries. It is also important for the countries to be an export crop to earn foreign currencies and a raw material for the textile industry [10].

Cotton also provides additional employment opportunities in direct or indirect ways such as textile production, feed, oil, paper, chipboard, and medium density fibreboards (MDF) productions, demand-creating for industrial products such as agricultural machinery-equipment and fertilizers.

Cotton has played an active role in industrialization process in the world since the eighteenth century and continues to play its central role as an important source of income for developing countries today [11].

When having a look at the world cotton production statistics from 1950 to the present; one can observe that production has increased approximately four times despite the limited upward shift in acreage (Tables 1 and 2).

No	Country	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
1	China	475	354	551	681	908
2	Australia	542	415	505	531	534
3	Türkiye	505	489	496	460	494
4	Mexico	467	476	483	442	469
5	Brazil	348	414	431	424	433
6	Bangladesh	346	347	348	338	340
7	Azerbaijan	176	153	176	295	336
8	Kyrgyzstan	314	318	324	328	334
	World	224	213	220	228	261

Table 1.

Seed cotton yields by country between 2016 and 2020 (kg/da).

Rank	Country		2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
1	India	Harvested area	10,830	12,430	12,350	15,029	12,865
		Share (%)	35.91	35.86	37.72	40.93	40.40
2	USA	Harvested area	3848	4492	4130	4699	3521
		Share (%)	12.76	12.96	12.61	12.80	11.06
3	China	Harvested area	2489	2700	2373	2517	2079
		Share (%)	8.25	7.79	7.25	6.86	6.53
4	Pakistan	Harvested area	2489	2700	2373	2517	2079
		Share (%)	8.25	7.79	7.25	6.86	6.
5	Brazil	Harvested area	996	928	1150	1627	1633
		Share (%)	3.30	2.68	3.51	4.43	5.13
6	Uzbekistan	Harvested area	1265	1201	1108	1051	1058
		Share (%)	4.20	3.47	3.38	2.86	3.32
7	Burkina Faso	Harvested area	655	845	473	591	647
		Share (%)	2.17	2.44	1.45	1.61	2.03
8	Benin	Harvested area	419	530	640	670	620
		Share (%)	1.39	1.53	1.95	1.82	1.95
9	Turkmenistan	Harvested area	550	540	535	535	535
		Share (%)	1.82	1.56	1.63	1.46	1.68
10	Türkiye	Harvested area	416	501	519	478	359
		Share (%)	1.38	1.45	1.58	1.30	1.13
	World	Harvested area	30,156	34,666	32,742	36,717	31,840
		Share (%)	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

Table 2.

Cotton harvest area of top 10 producer countries between 2016 and 2020.

The world average seed cotton yield was realized to be 2610 kg per hectare in 2020. China ranked first with an average yield of 9080 kg per hectare among the countries achieving high seed cotton yields in 2020. Although ranking first for many years regarding the seed cotton yield, Australia managed to find second place in the list with an average yield of 5340 kg/ha. Türkiye ranked third on the list with a yield of about 5 tonnes per hectare well above the world average. India, one of the world’s largest cotton producers, and the African countries, which have expanded their cotton acreages, grow cotton with yields below the world average [12].

When having a look at the average cotton yields it is noteworthy that there is a significant yield difference among the countries. India, the second largest cotton producer in the world, ranks 37th regarding seed cotton yields with an average of 1380 kg per hectare. It is thought that the basis of these differences is the different ecological conditions and the variations in production techniques of the countries (Table 1). In the last 70 years, in parallel with the increases in cotton production in the world, its consumption has increased approximately three times. It is thought that the main factors affecting this increase are the development of the textile and ready-made clothing industry, the increases in the world population and the gross national product per capita, the synthetic fiber consumption trend and prices.

Cotton is grown mostly in Asia. Approximately 69.87% of the world’s cotton acreage is in Asia. Amerika, Africa, Europe, and Australia rank second, third, fourth and fifth with the shares of 22.53, 5.81, 1.34 and 0.45% in respective order. In the 20/20 season, approximately 29 million farmers grow cotton in 83 countries worldwide. About 84% of global cotton production was achieved by 7 countries including India, China, America, Brazil, Pakistan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan [13].

Regarding seed cotton production, the top 10 countries, and their production statistics between 2016 and 2020 were presented in Table 3. China alone produced the one-third of the global production of about 83 million tonnes in 2020. Türkiye came 7th with about 2% of global share after Uzbekistan. It is clear from Table 3 that China, Brazil, Argentina, and Benin increased their seed cotton production successively. World total production followed the same trend except for a slight decrease in 2020. However, seed cotton production of other countries varied across the 5 years and decreased especially in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Türkiye in recent years (Table 3).

No	Countries		2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
1	China	Production	16,029	17,130	18,493	23,505	29,500
		Share (%)	23.75	23.20	25.67	28.03	35.49
2	India	Production	17,308	17,425	14,657	18,558	17,731
		Share (%)	25.65	23.60	20.34	22.13	21.33
3	USA	Production	10,083	12,000	11,133	12,819	9737
		Share (%)	14.94	16.25	15.45	15.29	11.72
4	Brazil	Production	3464	3843	4956	6893	7070
		Share (%)	5.13	5.20	6.88	8.22	8.51
5	Pakistan	Production	5237	5855	4828	4480	3454
		Share (%)	7.76	7.93	6.70	5.34	4.16
6	Uzbekistan	Production	2959	2854	2286	2692	3064
		Share (%)	4.39	3.86	3.17	3.21	3.69
7	Türkiye	Production	2100	2450	2570	2200	1774
		Share (%)	3.11	3.32	3.57	2.62	2.13
8	Argentina	Production	673	616	814	873	1046
		Share (%)	1.00	0.83	1.13	1.04	1.26
9	Burkina Faso	Production	785	844	482	724	783
		Share (%)	1.16	1.14	0.67	0.86	0.94
10	Benin	Production	451	598	678	715	728
		Share (%)	0.67	0.81	0.94	0.85	0.88
	World	Production	67,478	73,842	72,049	83,859	83,113
		Share (%)	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00

Table 3.

Seed cotton production of top 10 countries between 2016 and 2020 (thousand tonnes).

The most important reason for these fluctuations is obviously related to the changes in harvested area (Table 2). Yet it might also be arisen due to the variations in fiber length and quality because of the changes in ecological conditions which also alter from place to place by years.

Regarding seed cotton consumption, top 10 countries, and their production statistics available for the latest 5 years between 2015 and 2019 were presented in Table 4. As in the production statistics, the first five countries with the highest seed cotton consumption are the same except for the change in ranking between China and India. Yet, Türkiye comes fifth after Pakistan, moving up two ranks compared to the ranking list for the top 10 largest producer countries.

Rank	Country		2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
1	India	Production	5101	5542	5577	4767	6033
		Share (%)	22.77	23.69	21.90	19.17	23.65
2	China	Production	5610	5343	5653	6103	4892
		Share (%)	25.04	22.84	22.20	24.55	19.17
3	USA	Production	2806	3738	4555	4004	4335
		Share (%)	12.53	15.98	17.89	16.10	16.99
4	Brazil	Production	1627	1420	1499	1933	2688
		Share (%)	7.26	6.07	5.89	7.77	10.54
5	Pakistan	Production	1687	1815	2032	1677	1556
		Share (%)	7.53	7.76	7.98	6.75	6.10
6	Türkiye	Production	738	756	882	977	814
		Share (%)	3.29	3.23	3.46	3.93	3.19
7	Uzbekistan	Production	1095	1065	944	769	769
		Share (%)	4.89	4.55	3.71	3.09	3.01
8	Australia	Production	422	551	774	950	414
		Share (%)	1.88	2.35	3.04	3.82	1.62
9	Mexico	Production	205	164	335	414	368
		Share (%)	0.92	0.70	1.32	1.67	1.44
10.	Argentina	Production	303	290	260	266	308
		Share (%)	1.35	1.24	1.02	1.07	1.21
	World	Production	22,402	23,395	25,463	24,864	25,515
		Share (%)	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00

Table 4.

Fiber cotton production by country between 2015 and 2019 (in thousand tonnes).

From the production and consumption statistics presented in Tables 3 and 4, it is obvious that the largest cotton-producer countries have also the largest demand for cotton at the same time [14].

World cotton imports show an increasing trend continuously. For example, cotton imports have increased by 66.16% (34,128,689 thousand USD) for the years between 1990 and 2020 [15]. It is obvious from Table 5 that the commercial value of cotton maintains and increases its importance.

No	Country	Seed cotton import value; (thousand $)	Country	Fiber cotton import value; (thousand $)	Country	Cotton seed; import value; (thousand $)
1	China	8,278,844	China	3,562,312	Italia	41,750
2	Vietnam	3,692,816	Vietnam	2,176,156	South Korea	40,876
3	Türkiye	2,543,331	Bangladesh	2,014,804	Saudi Arabia	31,472
4	Pakistan	1,392,682	Türkiye	1,652,640	Japan	27,854
5	Indonesia	1,327,738	Pakistan	1,315,549	Mexico	25,143
6	USA	906,751	Indonesia	774,649	Azerbaijan	7068
7	South Korea	880,825	India	344,649	USA	6507
8	Italia	846,240	Thailand	218,573	Türkiye	3726
9	Germany	755,493	Malaysia	209,468	Spain	3321
10	Egypt	542,087	South Korea	187,109	Zimbabwe	3 02

Table 5.

Cotton imports by country in 2020 (in thousand USD) [15].

Cotton imports and exports were examined in seed cotton, fiber cotton and cottonseed items separately and the trade values were presented in Table 5. World cotton export values show an increasing trend as is the case with import values. According to the export values for the years 1990–2020 cotton exports increased by about 80% [16].

The data presented in Tables 3–5 show that the leading countries in seed cotton exports are more or less the same countries of production and import with slight differences in ranking. However, the ranking differs regarding fiber cotton and cottonseed exports. Yet, USA, India, Türkiye and Brazil can find places among the top 10 countries of seed cotton, fiber cotton and cotton seed exports.

It can be seen from Table 6 that developing countries must compete with developed countries, such as the USA and China, in order to have a share of the global export market. Countries such as China, India, Brazil and Türkiye play a more active role in the global cotton market as they are more economically developed countries than African and some Asian cotton producer countries.

No	Country	Seed cotton export value (thousand $)	Country	Fiber cotton export value (thousand $)	Country	Cotton seed; export value (thousand $)
1	China	10,998,837	USA	5,969,433	USA	94,576
2	USA	7,013,425	Brazil	3,226,916	Greece	69,875
3	India	5,809,190	India	1,448,516	Ivory Coast	15,800
4	Brazil	3,319,722	Greece	449,992	Benin	12,491
5	Vietnam	2,707,568	Benin	448,829	Ethiopia	9241
6	Pakistan	2,642,547	Australia	307,109	Türkiye	8320
7	Türkiye	1,463,452	Burkina Faso	263,296	Brazil	6526
8	Uzbekistan	1,200,763	Egypt	161,604	Israel	4592
9	Italia	961,167	Türkiye	159,811	India	3338
10	Germany	694,732	Uzbekistan	147,318	Zambia	3209

Table 6.

Cotton export values by country as of 2020 (thousand USD) [15].

Cotton, one of the most important industrial crops for China and India, which are the world’s largest fiber cotton producers, has 1% share of the GDP in these two countries. It makes up some 0.2% of GDP in Brazil as its share is only 0.03% in Argentina where a shrinkage is experienced in the sector [17]. On the other hand, while cotton production in Brazil constitutes 0.2% of GDP, it accounts for only 0.03% of GDP in Argentina, where the sector is shrinking.

The countries having a large share of global production such as China and USA and their production and stock sizes shape international market prices for cotton [18]. The production volumes and prices of other substitute fiber products, that are important for the textile industry such as wool, mohair, synthetic yarn, and the value of the USD against other currencies also play an important role in formation of cotton prices at international market [19]. In addition, the subsidies given by developed countries to their cotton producers negatively affect the competitiveness of other countries [20].

3. Cotton in Türkiye

Türkiye has the advantages of great agricultural potential and diversity. For that reason, the export-creating effect of production increase in agriculture is greater than that in industry [21]. Again, the driving force in cotton exports of Türkiye is the agriculture-based industries. It is a strategic crop for Türkiye and so it is called ‘white gold’ because of its value-added capacity, rather than its color.

Extension of cotton production in Türkiye was initiated by the events in remote countries. For example, cotton production in the USA, ranking first in global cotton production, decreased and prices increased due to the civil war started in 1861, This event caused a bottleneck for the UK, the most important cotton importer of that time due to the great Industrial Revolution, This bottleneck, of course, caused the British textile industrialists fall into a difficult position, Upon this, the organization of these industrialists, Manchester Cotton Supply Association, MCSA, started to search and develop new cotton production areas.

Adana¹ was also one of the areas found to meet the cotton demand. Upon with the cotton demand of UK, the Turkish government of that time in İstanbul issued various incentives to increase cotton production in Adana in 1862 [22]. In this context, it was decided to provide tax relief to farmers for 5 years [23]. Moreover, Sultan issued an edict to provide cotton seeds for the farmers and 165 thousand okkas² of seeds were brought from Egypt and distributed to the farmers. Again, in addition to all these incentives, UK sold 6000 tons of cotton seeds to the landowners in 1864 [24, 25].

The widespread cotton production in Adana inevitably led to the establishment of the textile industry. Until the 1860s, cotton cleaning and pressing processes were carried out with extremely primitive methods. However, upon the Ottoman Empire made cotton production an official policy, there had been a great increase in the investments of foreign states and important factories were established [26]. As a result, an increase in cotton production from 10 million kilograms to 50 million kilograms was achieved, which caused Adana to develop in agriculture, industry and trade.

Accordingly, it was necessary to take steps to make urban life more modern. However, by the end of the American Civil War, the European states turned to cheaper American cotton, which interrupted the development of Turkish cotton. Nevertheless, this experience formed an important basis for the Republican period. During the Republican period, in Türkiye, the main cotton production areas were considered. The construction of irrigation facilities in the Sakarya Valley to make use of the Sakarya river and Porsuk stream, enabled the development of cotton farming in this region [27]. In this period, the experience of foreign experts was also used in the development of cotton farming. While the production increase attempts continued on the one hand, the establishment of cotton plants formed the basis of Turkish Industry sector [28]. The incentives provided for the expansion of cotton production, the provision of infrastructure services, and product purchase guarantees, along with the establishment of state factories, Türkiye has reached its current state in cotton production and processing.

Turkish cotton acreage for the 20-year period between 2001 and 2020 is given in Table 7. A decrease of about 47% was recorded during this period, more than the decrease in world cotton acreage in percentage. As a result, although fluctuated throughout this period, the share of Türkiye in world cotton acreage decreased to about 1% from about 2% and cotton cultivation area is 1.13%. It is seen that cotton cultivation areas in Türkiye are fluctuating and decreasing.

Years	Türkiye		World		Share of Türkiye (%)
	Acreage (Ha)	Index (2000 = 100)	Acreage (Ha)	Index (2000 = 100)
2001	684,665	100.00	34,624 130	100.00	1.98
2002	721,077	105.32	30,751 267	88.81	2.34
2003	637,329	93.09	30,996 622	89.52	2.06
2004	640,045	93.48	35,018 796	101.14	1.83
2005	546,040	79.75	34,749 423	100.36	1.57
2006	589,700	86.13	34,437 460	99.46	1.71
2007	529,853	77.39	33,500 005	96.75	1.58
2008	494,891	72.28	31,035 321	89.63	1.59
2009	419,873	61.33	30,221 985	87.29	1.39
2010	480,439	70.17	31,795 011	91.82	1.51
2011	541,952	79.16	34,490 945	99.61	1.57
2012	488,496	71.35	34,691 598	100.19	1.41
2013	450,890	65.86	32,219 726	93.06	1.40
2014	466,839	68.19	34,613 269	99.97	1.35
2015	434,000	63.39	31,623 309	91.33	1.37
2016	416,002	60.76	30,155 719	87.09	1.38
2017	501,478	73.24	34,666 094	100.12	1.45
2018	518,634	75.75	32,741 708	94.56	1.58
2019	477,807	69.79	36,716 883	106.04	1.30
2020	359,220	52.47	31,840 226	91.96	1.13

Table 7.

Cotton acreage of Türkiye and its share in total world cotton acreage.

Source: www.fao.org

Having opened to irrigation by the implementation of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), the Southeastern region has turned into new cotton production areas. The provinces with the highest cotton acreages are presented in Table 8. According to the 2021 statistics, Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Aydın, Hatay, Adana and İzmir provinces have 86% of Turkish cotton acreage [29]. Even the southeastern provinces of Türkiye, Şanlıurfa and Diyarbakır, rank first and second in cotton acreage respectively. Adana province where cotton production first started in Türkiye, only managed to find 6th place in the list.

Rank	Province		2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
1	Şanlıurfa	Acreage	2237	2314	2088	1287	1835
		Share (%)	44.60	44.62	43.70	35.84	42.44
2	Diyarbakır	Acreage	428	480	477	404	552
		Share (%)	8.53	9.26	9.98	11.24	12.78
3	Aydın	Acreage	646	537	465	545	493
		Share (%)	12.88	10.35	9.72	15.16	11.41
4	Hatay	Acreage	518	485	456	332	390
		Share (%)	10.33	9.36	9.55	9.23	9.01
5	İzmir	Acreage	274	277	253	277	262
		Share (%)	5.47	5.35	5.29	7.72	6.07
6	Adana	Acreage	318	363	375	230	219
		Share (%)	6.34	6.99	7.84	6.40	5.06
7	Manisa	Acreage	59	103	90	92	124
		Share (%)	1.17	1.98	1.89	2.55	2.87
8	Denizli	Acreage	91	84	72	95	97
		Share (%)	1.82	1.63	1.51	2.66	2.24
9	Adıyaman	Acreage	66	80	72	55	61
		Share (%)	1.32	1.54	1.51	1.54	1.42
10	Mardin	Acreage	84	108	130	74	60
		Share (%)	1.67	2.08	2.72	2.07	1.38
	Türkiye	Acreage	5015	5186	4778	3592	4323
		Share (%)	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00

Table 8.

Cotton acreage by province between 2017 and 2021 (in thousand decares).

According to 2021 statistics seed cotton production in Türkiye was 2250 thousand tonnes. The shares of the leading provinces in cotton production are given in Table 9. Nearly 60% of seed cotton production is achieved in the Southeastern Anatolia region (Table 9). Adana province, which once produced more than half of Türkiye’s cotton production, ranks sixth in production as in acreage due to that it has now turned to different agricultural products [16].

Rank	Province		2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
1	Şanlıurfa	Production	1028	1028	813	567	893
		Share (%)	41.97	39.99	36.97	31.98	39.68
2	Diyarbakır	Production	217	244	234	218	309
		Share (%)	8.87	9.51	10.62	12.27	13.74
3	Aydın	Production	331	279	246	272	265
		Share (%)	13.52	10.87	11.20	15.31	11.76
4	Hatay	Production	266	264	220	175	210
		Share (%)	10.84	10.27	9.98	9.86	9.34
5	İzmir	Production	144	156	142	149	151
		Share (%)	5.86	6.07	6.45	8.39	6.69
6	Adana	Production	168	206	206	123	114
		Share (%)	6.87	8.02	9.35	6.93	5.05
7	Manisa	Production	32	61	55	56	73
		Share (%)	1.30	2.38	2.50	3.13	3.25
8	Denizli	Production	47	43	38	50	53
		Share (%)	1.94	1.65	1.74	2.82	2.34
9	Mardin	Production	42	57	65	40	33
		Share (%)	1.71	2.21	2.97	2.24	1.45
10	Adıyaman	Production	32	41	35	27	31
		Share (%)	1.31	1.58	1.59	1.52	1.37
	Türkiye	Production	2450	2570	2200	1774	2250
		Share (%)	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00

Table 9.

Unseeded cotton production amount by province between 2017 and 2021 (thousand tonnes).

While having a share of about 1% in world cotton exports Türkiye’s share in world cotton imports is quite high with more than 12%. Whereas Türkiye was an important exporter in meeting the world’s cotton demand. However, the rapid development of the Turkish textile industry has led to an increase in the demand for cotton. Consequently, Türkiye has become one of the important cotton importers due to insufficient production to meet the domestic demand [29].

Seed cotton export and import quantities of Türkiye were about 136 thousand tonnes and 1200 thousand tonnes respectively in the year 2021. Turkish seed cotton exports and imports are presented by countries in Figure 1 [30].

Figure 1.

Cotton export (a) and import (b) of Türkiye by country in 2021.

With the increased awareness of the non-biodegradability of synthetic fibers, their damage to the environment, and the augmented importance of human and environmental health especially with the effect of COVID-19 pandemic the share of cotton in the world market has been increasing day by day [29].

Although having been a net seed cotton importer in recent years, Türkiye gained multi-benefits from processing the imported seed cotton into yarn for textile industry, oil for human nutrition and pulp for animal nutirition. Thus, cotton import meets the demand of the textile and ready-made clothing manufacturing industry, which brings about growth of the sector, resulting in an increase in employment and export revenues [31].

Both domestic seed cotton production and imported seed cotton are utilized to create added value in the textile and ready-made clothing industry.

Türkiye’s textiles imports and exports were about 7.8 billion dollars and 12.3 billion dollars respectively in 2020. Ready-to-wear exports were about 15 billion dollars, as the imports were around 1.3 billion dollars. When we consider the total export and import values including textile, ready-made clothing and leather products Türkiye had a net foreign trade surplus of about 18 billion dollars in this sector (Table 10).

Sectors	Exports	Imports	Foreign Trade Balance
Textile	12,342	7772	4570
Ready-made clothing	14,988	1293	13,695
Total	27,330	9065	18,265

Table 10.

Turkish textile and ready-made clothing foreign trade values for the year 2020 (in million dollars).

Source: TRADEMAP [30].

The development course of the textile, ready-made clothing industry had an increasing trend in general, except the years between 2008 and 2010. The global economic crisis that started in the USA affected Turkish Agriculture parallel to its worldwide harmful effects.

Since agricultural products are the basic consumables, they are compulsorily demanded by consumers. In addition, the effects of the crisis were felt less in this sector since they are less sensitive to changes in supply and demand. The shrinkage in demand for agricultural products during crisis is less than that for industrial goods [31].

Therefore, the effects of the crisis were felt less in agriculture-based industries, compared to other industries.

It is thought that cotton will continue to be one of Türkiye’s most strategic products as long as we cannot steer the employment created by the textile and ready-to-wear industry to more profitable areas and produce a more value-added agricultural product than cotton. Cotton is an agricultural crop with no alternative for Türkiye and accordingly, cotton-related policies should be in line with this strategic importance in Türkiye. The economic cost of the abandonment of cotton farming will definitely be much higher than the burden on the budget due to the support payments and the subsidies for sustainable cotton production today. The employment created in agriculture and industry, the main and by-products, and the positive effect on the balance of payments make cotton indispensable for Türkiye.

In the Turkish National Cotton Industry Report it was declared that “627 thousand tonnes of fiber cotton and 883 thousand tonnes of cottonseed were obtained from 2.2 million tonnes of cotton seed production in the 2019/20 season. In addition, 133 thousand tonnes of edible oil and 618 thousand tonnes of fodder pulp were obtained from the processing of cottonseed as well as 44 thousand tonnes of linter and 96 thousand tonnes of cotton waste were made available to many industries, especially medical supplies and cosmetics. In this sense, when only the main product, ‘fiber cotton’, is considered, it will be obvious that through processing in textile and ready-made clothing industries domestic cotton production, which is worth 1 billion 204 million dollars, brought to national economy with an increase 11 times in gross and 2.5 times in net value. That almost half (45.17%) was obtained in foreign currency increases the importance of this earning even more.

With the inclusion of sustainability, environmental, social and economic dimensions among the priorities of the cotton industry, cotton, which is a basic and indispensable raw material and natural fiber, has become more important for the textile and ready-made clothing industries. With its easy biodegradability property due to being a cellulose-based natural fiber, cotton has an important advantage especially when compared to polyester and other synthetic fibers. In addition to that Türkiye has also an important place in the use of sustainable cotton production methods, such as organic and ‘Better’ cotton production, even conventionally grown cotton has also sustainability since Turkish cotton is non-GMO.

4. Conclusion

The fluctuations in the world cotton prices and the easy import of fiber cotton affect the cotton farmers in Türkiye negatively. This causes farmers to seek alternative crops and shrink their cotton-growing areas. Due to its importance, cotton is a product especially supported by producer countries in the world. Thus, according to International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) data, government support have reached high levels in recent years. In order to increase the production of cotton, also called “white gold”, alternative supports, such as price support, customs measures and crop insurance support should be considered. In general, it would be beneficial to reorganize cotton policies in order to solve high-cost problems, increase production and create a competitive environment. It would be fairer to determine cotton prices not by a few countries such as the USA and China but by the contributions of other producer countries on a global scale. In addition, along with sharing the knowledge markets should be freed from the monopoly of GMO cotton and scientific studies should be supported more for the development and extension of high-yield cotton cultivars to increase the quality of cotton worldwide.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.