Improvements In Ginning Will Benefit The Entire Supply Chain
August 22, 2013 Sustainability in the cotton industry is difficult to define in a broad sense because it has so many implications and meanings in different scenarios. Even for individual sectors, a satisfactory definition is very elusive.
Even when restricted to ginning, the definition varies according to the type of ginner and business model. For example, to a job-worker ginner in the private or cooperative sector, sustainability means having an adequate quantity of cotton to gin at prices high enough to earn back his investments and make a good profit.
Trader ginners in the private or cooperative sector, on the other hand, might define sustainability as having adequate seed cotton, with the lowest trash and contamination, at the lowest price, and being able to sell cotton lint and cotton seed at profitable prices (price volatility is always a major concern).
Because profits or losses are taken by government, for both job-worker ginners and trader ginners in the government sector, sustainability means having adequate finances to cover expenses, either from the operation itself or from government funding.
Despite different working conditions and fundamentals, the real sustainability for all ginners will be ensured by the following factors:
1. Availability of adequate volume
The availability of the adequate volume of cotton for ginning directly depends upon the production of cotton – the sustainability of which depends upon various factors such as market share, environmental issues, water availability, land availability, and several other factors.
World cotton fiber production is likely to decline to 25 million tons in 2012/13, and cotton’s share of total textile fiber consumption to about 31%, due to relative price of cotton to polyester. Higher stocks of cotton carryover have further added to price reductions, resulting in lower profits to ginners.
To revive the quantity of cotton production, it is necessary to drive demand by increasing the share of cotton in the textile fiber and innovative alternative uses including nanocelluose. This is only possible if the desired initiatives to reduce the cost are taken and the complete value chain from farm level to the end user of cotton and all of its byproducts (linter, cotton seed, cotton seed oil, oil cake/de-oiled cake, cotton stalk) is fully utilized so that the pressure on cotton lint prices decreases and its competitiveness against manmade fibers and petroleum-based fibers is enhanced.
2. Lowest cost for ginning/pressing per unit of production
Results of a survey of cotton ginneries in the United States that compared costs based on gin annual volume showed that larger volumes help to reduce per-bale cost. A high volume of ginning, together with adoption of best management practices and enforcement of standards, will lead the reduction of ginning cost per unit, while adoption of improved technological inventions will ensure lower cost per unit ginned.
The cost of ginning is significantly affected by the quality, moisture content, harvesting methods (hand picking, machine picking, hand stripping, mechanical harvesting), and mode of transporting cotton from the field to processing machines and equipment. When the trash and moisture content are high, more equipment, capital investment, manpower, electrical power, etc. are required to clean and dry the cotton, all of which substantially increase the cost of ginning. All efforts should be made to adopt practices that keep the trash content in the seed cotton low and moisture content at desired levels.
3. Retention of best natural fiber parameters
Ginners make more profit if they can offer best fiber parameters after ginning. Technology and the gentle treatment of the fiber during processing play a vital role. The selection of processing machinery should be guided by the ginning requirement of the natural fiber parameters of the cotton being ginned – length, desired moisture content, micronaire, strength, uniformity. For example, hand-picked cotton in which the fiber bolls are pulled out from the flower without collecting any pods will always be very clean, unless contaminants and trash are added by careless handling.
If hand-picked cotton is ginned on double roller gins, the natural fiber parameters will be best preserved. Machine-picked cotton will have higher trash content and must be cleaned and dried, and will be more suitable for ginning on saw gins.
It is desirable that in any one area, one variety should be grown to facilitate optimization of ginning parameters by selecting the suitable ginning technology. If another variety of cotton which is not suitable is ginned on the same machinery, it will cause some losses to the ginner due to lower ginning outturn (GOT).
In short, fiber parameters, time involved in setting the ginning equipment and feeding into the ginning machine, machine speed, temperature at ginning point, trash content, moisture content, all play a significant role in the fiber parameters of ginned lint (see Table 1, below):
4. Highest ginning outturn
If the cotton parameters at the time of ginning are suitable to efficient ginning on selected ginning technology, the optimum GOT can be obtained. The ginner gets a higher return on increased quantity of fiber with best fiber parameters, and the seed also brings a higher return being nearer to suitable for intended use. The higher outturn of clean cotton in India on double roller gins is comparable to clean cotton in Western Africa when saw ginned.
The variety of cotton that has a higher bunch of fiber on the seed is best option for higher outturn, enhancing ginner profits on such varieties. For example, the bunch of fiber on seed is more than 44% in Zimbabwe but less than 37% in most of the Indian varieties. Hence, with the same price of seed cotton, the Zimbabwe ginner gets a higher return for a higher percentage of fiber.
5. Lowest trash
Trash content depends upon factors such as harvesting practices, variety of cotton, and moisture content. A cotton variety that opens fully can be handpicked without the pod while a cotton variety the flower of which does not open properly – such as some Turkish varieties, 797 in Gujarat India, and some varieties in Pakistan – cannot be clean picked and have to be hand stripped or machine stripped/picked, resulting in a higher trash content.
The ginning of such varieties is a very lengthy process requiring lots of equipment, hence higher cost of ginning. The higher the trash content, the lower the ginner’s profit. Therefore, farmers should be encouraged to grow only those varieties where the boll can be easily taken out from the flower either by hand or spindle picker. The varieties that do not open should be avoided.
6. Lowest contamination
By adopting the best picking, storing and transportation methods, the contamination level in the seed cotton can be reduced to a great extent. The use of scanning machines is also contributing to lowering the contamination levels in the cotton thanks to modernization of ginning factories in the various parts of the world. When the contamination is at its lowest, ginners incur lower processing costs and get higher prices from buyers, improving profits.
7. Income from complete cotton value chain
The complete value chain of cotton – from planting to end use for cotton fiber and all the byproducts of cotton (cotton seed, linter, hull, kernel/meat for oil, oil cake/de-oiled cake, cotton stalk for wood pallets/particle boards, etc.) – should be fully explored to reduce the pressure on prices of cotton lint and provide adequate income to the farmer and ginner. At the same time, providing cotton fiber to the spinning mills and other users at competitive prices will result in an increase of cotton’s market share.
8. Reduction in the cost of logistics
From cotton fields to ginning factories, huge sums of money are spent on transportation of loose seed cotton. Compacting seed cotton before transporting it would make a huge difference in logistics, handling and storage costs. Governments and all concerned should devise schemes and rules to make compacting seed cotton compulsory – which in turn will save space and money for the ginner, ultimately resulting in huge savings.
9. Reduction in the cost of storage
If the compacting of cotton is made compulsory for seed cotton during logistics and handling, the space required for the storage will decrease dramatically, while the handling of cotton will become very cost-effective through the reduction of manpower. This is due to the use of tractor and tractor attachments and similar other module/compact bale-handling devices. This will result in both convenience and cost savings to ginners everywhere.
The Sustainability of Ginning
The need for handling high volume with low labor costs, and with lower trash content – all while averting risk in storage of higher volume of loose cotton in the ginneries – has resulted in the establishment of large-capacity, modernized, automatic ginning plants for cotton ginning in cotton-growing developing countries. Small gins with all-manual processes are unsustainable and are closing down.
This trend has increased at a rapid speed. In India alone, about 3,000 such modernized ginning factories have been established since 2000. The ginners are able to produce bales at the lowest cost of production per bale and earn higher profits, a portion of which is being transferred to farmers, who in turn are encouraged to plant more cotton.
The work to increase cotton’s share of textile fiber worldwide and explore other alternative uses will enhance the sustainability of ginning.
Ginners have started to understand the merits and drawbacks of various ginning technologies and are selecting the ones that are best-suited for their cotton varieties. For example, ginners in Turkey have started installing saw gins, while ginners in East African countries have started putting in double-roller ginning machines to optimize their outturns and retention of fiber parameters.
Government policies in various countries have supported the modernization and upgrading of ginning factories in their respective countries. In India, initiatives such as the Technology Mission on Cotton (TMC) and Technology Up-gradation Fund (TUF) have provided substantial support for the modernization of ginning factories.
Large efforts are being made to enhance the cotton value chain, while innovation and adoption of various technologies for cotton linters, better cotton seed, cottonseed oil cake/de-oiled cake, and use of cotton stalk for various purposes is easing the pressure on cotton prices, which have been fairly stable.
These efforts will certainly help maintain the sustainability of ginners, who are able to contribute by enhancing cotton’s market share – as well as encourage other uses of cotton byproducts. The future appears to be quite sustainable, even if it remains difficult to define.
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