ICAC CEO: High cotton prices may not be long term

Recently, Terry Townsend, executive president of the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), wrote in the International Cotton Magazine that the current high cotton prices may not be long-term, and the cotton industry will still be subject to competitive pressures and economic pressures from various sources.

Terry said that the gradual improvement of the global economy, the implementation of monetary policies by many countries around the world, and the forced intervention of governments such as India and Pakistan have affected the trend of cotton prices in 2010/11 to some extent. Will cotton prices abandon the interests of competing crops, technology, and economic factors many years ago and continue the current trend of rising? Terry thinks the possibility is not great. He said that despite the current high global cotton prices, the cotton industry will still face competition from all parties. The first is competition from food and oil crops; the second is long-term competition with chemical fiber. In addition, considering that GM cotton technology has been used significantly in recent years, it is expected that the annual growth rate of global cotton yield will not exceed 4% in the future. Therefore, in the long run, global cotton production and consumption will grow slowly, and the balance between supply and demand will return to history. In the average state, the cotton price will also fall back to the historical average price.