United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA FAS) announces that Uzbekistan's MY 2006/07 cotton harvest came to an end. As of November 20, 2006, Uzbek farmers harvested 3.72 million metric tons (MMT) of seed cotton.
Based on increased seed cotton production, lint production and exports are forecast at 1.2 MMT (5.5 million bales) and 900,000 MT (4.1 million bales) accordingly.
Uzbekistan's MY 06/07 cotton harvest came to an end. As of November 20, 2006 Uzbek farmers harvested 3.727 MMT of seed cotton in total, which is 3.5 percent more than the state production target (3.6 MMT).
This year's favorable weather conditions during the vegetation period and harvesting in September-October considerably benefited the crop condition and allowed the farmers to over-fulfill the state target.
Still, given farmers' low incomes, Post believes that sometimes GOU's official seed cotton production figures can be overestimated by 50,000-60,000 tons.
Based on increased seed cotton production, Post forecasts Uzbekistan's MY 06/07 lint production at 1.2 MMT.
Regarding quality, private sector representatives currently do not expect any quality deterioration of the new crop. As for lint quality and its control, at the present time, there is a three-level system of cotton quality control in Uzbekistan:
Control executed by the SIFAT (Uzbek Center for Lint Certification) pending the cotton certificationprocedure; Quality control executed by SIFAT at a storage terminal when accepting lint for storage.
There are now 21 such cotton storage terminals in Uzbekistan with an aggregate storage capacity exceeding 400,000 tons. Control prior to the sales of lint from a terminal, executed by the Buyer in his own discretion.
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United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service
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