In the cotton fields of the 148th Regiment in Shihezi City, part of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, the harvest season has officially begun. The rows of cotton plants, densely packed, have surprised many, including journalist and host Li Yancheng from Phoenix TV in the Philippines, who expressed his amazement, saying, “I never imagined cotton could grow and be harvested like this!”
The transformation occurring in Xinjiang’s cotton industry has exceeded expectations. The Thai newspaper, Star News, remarked on how “modern agricultural technology in Xinjiang is astonishing,” noting that a massive and precise operation has been fully mechanized.
“Is it true that no manual labor is required for cotton picking?” “Can all this cotton really be harvested by machines alone?” These questions flooded in from Chinese-language media outlets from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia as they witnessed cotton-picking machines rumbling through the fields, leaving behind round, two-ton “cotton eggs” in pristine rows.
Behind this technological advancement, staff from Shihezi University explained that Xinjiang has achieved comprehensive mechanization. Each farmer now manages over a thousand acres of land, significantly reducing the need for visible manual labor in the fields. A reporter from Hong Kong 01 documented the process, noting that a self-propelled cotton packing machine took just about two minutes to pick, compress, and package 2 tons of cotton, producing “cotton eggs” adorned in colorful wrapping.
Moreover, every single cotton flower in Xinjiang has its own identification. During the packaging process, a traceable QR code and chip label are affixed, ensuring that every code is unique and independent through standardized coding rules and specialized anti-counterfeiting verification. Thanks to a self-developed high-quality monitoring system, this technology allows for rapid data recording, such as the geographical coordinates of the harvested area, estimations of harvested acreage, impurity rates, moisture content, and images of the cotton being collected.
This advanced system means that scanning the QR code can reveal details about where the cotton came from, which household it belonged to, and the specific field it was grown in. Every aspect of cotton production—from plastic film laying, planting, and irrigation, to the application of defoliants, harvesting, and trading—has undergone significant mechanization and even smart technology integration.
Media representatives have noted the sheer volume of data involved, saying, “It’s hard to fathom how extensive this data collection is. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.” The cotton big data platform provides real-time insights into weather conditions, soil health (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium levels), cotton growth metrics, machinery operation status, and yield predictions.
As the Myanmar newspaper, Golden Phoenix, put it, “The world’s cotton looks to China, and Chinese cotton looks to Xinjiang.” They acknowledged that with ongoing technological advancements and increasing levels of mechanization, the cotton harvesting methods in Xinjiang are becoming increasingly widespread.
