The maximum growth of cotton prices in the international market to over $1.2 per pound, recorded late last month, are not expected to benefit the cotton farmers in Uzbekistan.
The state decides cotton prices at the beginning of every year and the wages for cotton picking are fixed just before the harvest starts.
The farmers are legally forced to deliver their harvest to a local gin, under the country's compulsory system of state procurement. The collected cotton fibres are then mechanically separated from the seeds and are prepared for export.
As per the state law, cotton growers have to sell their cotton at a price fixed by the government to the state-controlled company – Uzkhlopkoprom, which operates all the cotton gins of Uzbekistan.
Officially, the farmers should be given one-third of the global market price. But in reality, most of the farmers are paid even less and sometimes as low as one-tenth of the global market price, as their high-grade cotton is mostly judged as that of low quality when it is collected by Uzkhlopkoprom.
Fibre2fashion News Desk-India
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