Advancements in Cotton Production

Cotton Production Advancement

• Cotton production improved through machines, chemicals, and genetic modification technology.

Business Organization Advances

• Advances in business organization, marketing, risk sharing, and political influence banded cotton growers together.

Cotton Gin Advancements

• Cotton growers had cooperative ownership of cotton gins, freeing them from reliance on local gins.
• The number of gins fell by 95%, from 20,214 in 1900 to 896.
• The capacity of a typical gin increased by a factor of 40.

Maximizing Cotton Production Value

• Growers showed an ability to extract maximum value from cotton production, utilizing everything, including gin trash.

Cotton Module Truck

• A module truck holds 22,000 lbs of cotton.
• The composition of 22,000 lbs of cotton in a module truck is 24% lint, 40% burs, sticks, and trash, and 36% seed.
• Of the seed the composition is 50% seed meal, 30% seed hull, 16% seed oil, and 4% seed linters.

Grower Cooperatives

• Improved cotton quality by educating growers on producing better cotton with longer, stronger, and whiter fibers.
• Set up technologically advanced cotton classing offices for better pricing.
• Growers placed their cotton into cooperative marketing pools.
• Growers received cash advances from the cooperative post-ginning and later periodic payments as the cotton was sold.

Cotton Farmer Income

• Guaranteed income of a cotton farmer was at 72.24 cents per pound, while the world price hovered around 44 cents.

US Government Subsidies

• Legislative branches opposed subsidies for cotton farmers, but the major provisions remained unchanged after the 2002 farm bill expired in 2007.
• US government subsidies under the cotton program surpass the entire GDP of the world's poorest countries.
• The primary effect of these subsidies is to elevate the supply of cotton, decreasing the global market price and reducing income for farmers outside the US.

US Cotton Industry Success Factors

• Entrepreneurial spirit and creativity stimulated research and scientific progress.
• Maximizing income from every step, utilizing leftovers for cattle, fish, and human food.
• Joint ownership of gins, oil mills, and textile factories .
• Strong links between farmers, universities, and government.
• Political power shifts risk from weather to the US taxpayer.
• Historical use of methods, from slavery to sharecropping, to control labor costs.
• US government subsidies enable a factory-style cotton production, needing capital, markets, literacy, plus supporting institutions.

West African Cotton Farmers Difficulties

• Use implements for toxic pesticides to carry food or drinking water results in pesticide-related health problems.
• Illiterate village leaders are unable to apply percentages critical to selling and growing cotton.
• Corruption increases costs with truck drivers needed to be bribed.

US vs West Africa

• US cotton grower cooperatives marketed US cotton, while European companies marketed West African cotton.
• European traders enjoy monopoly power over ginning and other supply chain steps.
• There are limited options to obtain seed and fertilizer.

Low Labor

• Battling insects by hand is feasible in countries with plentiful supply of cheap labor.
• Cheap labor is a downfall, not an advantage.

Organic Cotton

• Most de facto organic growers of Africa find it difficult to adhere to the requirements for what an organic farmer should be.
• Most African cotton growers cannot afford certification fees that are required.
• Inability to complete forms with the paperwork required.

Disaster Differences US vs. India

• US cotton growers who lose their entire crop to a hailstorm do not lose sleep as the US government provides subsidies, insurance, and disaster relief
• When Indian cotton farmers lost crops to bollworms, 500 committed suicide leading to thousands more suicides over the next 6 years.
• Pesticide dealers furnished Andra Pradesh farmers with pesticides with 36% interest who could not read the directions for use.
• There was no government entity to give advice or funding to replace the moneylender.

US Cotton to China and Back

• Is exported from the US to China.
• The cotton in China is then carded and spun into yarn.
• Yarn spools are knitted into fabric.
• Fabric is cut into panels which are used to construct a t-shirt.
• "Made in China" label is then attached.
• US cotton now becomes a t-shirt that is shipped back to the US.

Global Textile Domination

• China now dominates the global textile and apparel industries
• US dominates world cotton markets.

US Apparel Downfall

• Disappearance of US apparel manufacturing.
• US imports soaring.
• Falling prices of clothing in the US.

Chinese Victory Failures

• It represents a failure for US trade policy.
• Represents a failure for American workers.
• Represents failure for Chinese workers toiling in poor sweatshop condition for very low wages.
• A failure for the environment.

Race to the Bottom

• The race to the bottom must be examined.
• Air emissions, water waste, and poverty are key issues.

Europe's Industrial Success

• China was superior to Europe in prosperity, and politics until the late 1700s.
• Europe made a great leap forward with the Industrial Revolution.

Early Textile Differences

• In China, the production of textiles and clothing spun fabric, cutting, and sewing were family affairs done at family homes.
• In Britain, spinning was a home industry. But weaving later became a small cottage industry where spun yarn was sold to professional weavers.

Challenges for Early Weavers

• Shortage of yarn especially with the adaption of the flying shuttle system.
• James Hargreaves invented 8 spindle flying jenny rose which helped make more yarn available for weavers.

Flying Jenny's Effect

• With the adaption of the flying jenny, the number of spindles increased and cotton prices decreased.
• By the end of the 18th century the price of cotton in Britain cost 1/20 of the price in the 1780s.

Spinning Jenny's Consequences

• Spinning Jennies led to workers giving up their domestic textile work and created a factory system.
• Infrastructure developed that assisted movement of business.

Early Mill Workers

• Most workers were children/rural women
• Docile and desperate workers were preferred.

British Cotton Textile Decline

• Britain's leadership in cotton textiles passed on to the US through industrial espionage of Francis Cabot Lowell.

New England and British textiles compared

• Northern textile businesses exploited children and landless workers to gain advantage.
• Mills in New England were powered by young single women from New England and Canada, also children and later immigrants. These mills had 70 hour working weeks.
• Textile Production gradually moved to Southern US states due to lower wages, child labor and poor working conditions.

Southern US Mills

• The Chinese export market drove growth for the mills.
• China purchased over half of US Fabric exports in the late 1800’s.
• Girls as young as 7 who worked over 60 hours a week, poor education, lived in poverty.
• Southern Mills victory against north and competition loomed in the race to the bottom being Japan.

Japan's textile

• In Mid 1930, Japan sold 40% of the worlds textile.
• In the 1920s more than half of Japans industrial workers were employed in textiles.
• Textile industry relied on low labor costs and poor working conditions, especially at night.
• Young women were escaping rural poverty from natural disasters, working 12 hour shifts, two days off.

Asian Economic Development

• Asian Tigers had replaced Japan in the race to the bottom.
• Countries exported as well as employed famine escaping individuals from China.
• Young women in Taiwan and Korea poured into the sweatshops.

Final Textile Location

• China waited with wages 90% percent lower than Asian Tigers.