College Station, Texas
December 11, 2007
Texas A&M University’s Department of Biological and
Agricultural Engineering has signed a mutual collaboration
agreement with one of the largest manufacturers of cotton
ginning machinery in China.
The agreement with Shandong Swan Cotton Industrial Machinery
Stock Co. Ltd. may benefit Texas A&M research and encourage U.S.
raw cotton exports to China, in turn helping that country
increase its textile exports, said Dr. Calvin Parnell, Regents
professor with the biological and agricultural engineering
department.
China currently produces 30 million bales of hand-picked cotton
annually. It imports about 5 million bales of U.S. cotton per
year, but its need for the fiber is growing, Parnell said.
“China has the largest textile industry in the world,” he said.
“They consume more product than they produce. Most of the
(exported) U.S. cotton is exported to China.”
At the same time, Parnell said, Texas Agricultural Experiment
Station faculty in agricultural and biological engineering have
more harvesting, seed cotton storage, transporting and cotton
fiber quality research than anyone else in the U.S.
“What attracted them was our expertise in cotton engineering,”
Parnell said.
Cotton in the U.S. is harvested using either mechanical pickers
or strippers. Parnell said one person in China can pick about
200-300 pounds of short-staple cotton in a day. Short-staple
cotton has relatively short fibers. By comparison, a mechanical
picker can pick about 112,500 to 450,000 pounds in a 12-hour day
depending on crop condition.
China now has about 8,000 cotton gins, but it is hoping, with
better equipment, to reduce that number to 2,000. Texas has
reduced its number of cotton gins from 2,000 in the 1960s to 260
in 2007, due in large part to Texas A&M’s engineering efficiency
research, he said.
“We’re ginning more cotton than we ever have,” Parnell said.
According to Parnell, gins in the U.S. did not exceed 20 bales
per hour in the 1960s. Sixty bale-per-hour gins are common now.
The agreement calls for the exchange of scientists and
specialists for joint research and development programs.
A benefit to Texas A&M is further research funding, Parnell
said. In addition, Texas A&M scientists could learn first-hand
how to satisfy a major consumer of U.S. cotton.
The agreement was signed in November by Benny Cheung, head of
corporate strategy and global development with Swan, and Dr.
Gerald L. Riskowski, head of the department of biological and
agricultural engineering.
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