Forty years ago, why did Xinjiang's cotton production plummet?

An agricultural product in a province in China, 40 years ago, the output accounted for only 2.5% of the country, and now it has accounted for 20% of global output, similar to India, the second largest producer, and 20% more than the United States, the third largest producer. This province is the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. This product is cotton. At the same time, the cotton production in the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin, which has nearly a thousand years of history, is almost left. In 2019, the cotton produced in the two major river basins is only It accounts for 15% of the country’s output, and Xinjiang’s cotton area has accounted for 85%. This is an event that can be written in the history of agriculture. What does it enlighten us? In the past, the importance of cotton in China was not much lower than that of food. One example is that since the reform and opening up, China’s agricultural product market has been liberalized one after another, first fruits and ...