Cotton machine makers move to sew up the domestic market

Two agricultural machinery manufacturers — Changzhou Dongfeng Agricultural Machinery Group and Hanmey — from Changzhou, Jiangsu province, are setting their eyes on eco-friendly mechanization of cotton planting in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region for market prospects.

Having captured the hearts of customers in Xinjiang, the manufacturers said they wish to gain a foothold in the domestic market and better integrate themselves into the dual-circulation development pattern.

Both firms are regular visitors to the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair.

Xinjiang has long been at the forefront of the world for its high-quality cotton yields, which are suitable for making high-count fabrics.

Currently, planting machines are used at all cotton plantations in the region and harvesters are used in nearly 70 percent of them.

In the agricultural machinery field, cotton pickers are among the products that require high technological expertise and industry threshold, industry insiders said.

Some of the core components in cotton pickers have long been monopolized by overseas brands.

Dongfeng has invested heavily in the research and development of cotton harvesters since 2015. It was one of the earliest agricultural machinery manufacturers making forays into the sector in China.

Its efforts have paid off — the 4MZ-3, the company’s first self-propelled cotton harvester with six cylinders in line, rolled off the production line in 2017.

Two years later, its upgraded 4MZ-6 was released on the market, breaking the technological monopoly of foreign businesses.

“A cotton harvester is large, so it would be hard to have it shipped to the Canton Fair for display,” said an executive at the company.

Having the fair held on a cloud provides “a fair playground”, as all exhibitors use pictures to promote their products, the executive said.

Benefiting from a service package designed for domestic sales of originally export-oriented products, Dongfeng strutted its stuff to buyers at the fair, with its exhibits labeled as “being available for the domestic market”.

“This year, the number of our cotton harvesters sold to Xinjiang is expected to reach 120,” the executive said.

Environmentally-friendly planting is crucial to cotton plantations. Xinjiang has a dry and cold climate, so the cotton plantations need to be covered with film to preserve the temperature and soil moisture.

But how the film was disposed of after harvest posed a great problem for farmers.

Aware of the issue, Hanmey cooperated with Chen Xuegeng, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, in 2015 to develop the first-generation agricultural film-collecting machine.

After scores adjustments and improvements, they developed a series of machines to recover incomplete film.

Their current collecting rate exceeds 90 percent, according to the company.

Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, Hanmey was thwarted in its export business.

Therefore the company increased R&D efforts and adapted itself to the domestic market, hoping to expand its profile via the Canton Fair.

As an active participant in the biannual event, Hanmey has increased publicity of its agricultural film-collecting machines and carved a niche in the domestic market.

The machines’ high efficiency has drawn attention from cotton farmers in Xinjiang.

“We have received orders and started a trial run on a small scale,” an executive from the company said. “The sales were estimated to hit 2,000 units within three years, adding 300 million yuan ($45.92 million) in net sales.”

Targeting the domestic market does not just mean a shift in the marketplace, but needs adapted thinking, from design to R&D, he noted.

The company will make full use of the Canton Fair, showcasing its achievements in R&D and its product portfolio.

Both were developed based on new needs from the domestic market in a bid to increase the company’s competitive edge, it said.