Q1 Preview: Food Crops, Cellulose Cloud Market Share Predictions

By Jim.Robinson|March 22, 2012

By Rachel Varughese
Editor, Textiles Intelligence

When faced with higher cotton prices in 2010/11, many manufacturers cut back on orders for raw cotton and cotton textiles. At the same time, a number of manufacturers substituted other fibers in place of cotton in order to keep costs down. As a result of these actions, there has been a sharp drop in demand for cotton.

Demand for man-made fibers has outpaced demand for natural fibers since 2006, years before the volatility affected the cotton industry. This continuous rise has been facilitated by significant increases in man-made fiber production, especially in China.

According to the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), global demand for cotton in the 2011/12 season is likely to be down by 0.4% to 24.39 million tons while production is set to increase by 8.0% to 26.88 million tons – its highest since 2004/05. However, according to ICAC, the area planted to cotton worldwide will drop 8% in 2012/13, and production will decrease 6%.

Some experts believe that cotton production may be limited in the future by the availability of arable land.