How Egyptian Cotton Kept Its Superiority?
Decades back and ahead

Eng. Tharwat El Miniawy
Chairman

Egyptian cotton is not only just a crop but history, life, fact and future for Egypt.

For a long time Egypt had relied on exporting its cotton to the European countries specially the United Kingdom as factories had been designed to fit with the superior technological properties of Egyptian cotton.

Egyptian cotton has contributed in a way or another to draw the population map and the emergence of many industrial cities.

So, cotton is the present and the future of Egypt as it has always ranked the first among agricultural and industrial exports.

Egyptian cotton is a strong competitor for its superiority among the world cotton varieties. That is a result of the tremendous efforts done by all cotton sectors which includes research, production, marketing and manufacturing.

Egyptian cotton handling stages have played an important role in maintaining its unique properties, due to the gentle treating starting from hand picking which preserves the cotton fiber better than the mechanical picking that causes a lot of
technological problems for cotton fibers like increasing neps and other problems related to mechanical picking and cleaning .

In addition , packing seed cotton in jute sacs sewed by cotton threads in order to protect it from any external contamination specially polypropylene threads.

Egyptian cotton handling system through its marketing stages starting from classing sac by sac done by the classers of Cotton Arbitration & Testing General Organization (CATGO) in different rings and marketing locations by applying the Law No.106 of the year 1973 and Law No.75 of the year 2007 which prevents the delivery of seed cotton to the ginning mills without being classed in the classing rings and without CATGO`s classing card that indicates the seed cotton classification.

Cotton is classed to determine its variety and grade, the classer draws sample for calculating the ginning out-turn in order to determine the actual price of the cotton, also to gather sacs of similar grades which leads to obtain homogeneous lint cotton lots; as well as refusing to class polypropylene sewed sacs or plastic patched sacs aiming to preserve Egyptian cotton from contamination, that leads to decreasing contamination to the minimum level according to the International Textile Manufacturers federation ( ITMF) surveys.

Besides the framework mechanism inside the ginning mills, CATGO`s classers inspects all seed cotton sacs delivered to the ginning mills to ensure that it is the assigned variety for that ginning mill and the absence of all forms of contamination, further more, following up seed cotton stacking according to its grade and the supervision on dargging and emptying seed cotton sacs in blending halls (Taddriba) according to the Law No.106 of the year 1973 to increase homogenity among cotton bales within the same lot, which in its turn helps spinners in predicting and obtaining the desired yarn quality.

Classers follow up the ginning process to ensure obtaining desired quality of lint cotton free from seed fragments and other contaminats, that supervision includes the whole ginning process until baling, and its approval by marking it (CATGO`s name, cotton variety and trade lot number and weighing control) and preparing cotton for export directly from ginning mills or after making the ( Farfara) at Alexandria pressing mills.

The main aim of CATGO is to protect Egyptian cotton from mixing, deterioration and contamination, through its effective role appreciated by all international organizations involved in the cotton industry.

Ten percent of the lot is drawn for HVI testing then issuing internationally recognized certificates that indicates physical cotton properties.

CATGO’s labs are equiped with updated instruments for testing cotton fiber properties such as : HVI, Micromat, Neptester, Shirly Trash Analyser MK2, Micro Dust and Trash Analyser MDTA3 and High Speed Stickiness Detector H2SD.

Further more, CATGO undertakes drawing samples for arbitration in its three stages (First instance, Appeal & Counter Appeal).The arbitration is done by CATGO’s sworn experts at Mint El-Bassal Cotton Exchange.

As well as, drawing samples for measuring moisture regain, the samples from ginning, spinning & pressing mills, warehouses according to the standared methods.

Among the important developments in CATGO; is issuing computerized certificates for Moisture regain & adjusted weight (the standard moisture percent is 8.5% according to the international agreements) , cotton variety & grade, as well as cotton fiber properties.
CATGO conducts applicable researches which emphasize that all cotton handling stages have a positive impact on quality properties by the gentle treatment that preserves fiber quality.

CATGO conducted studies about the relation between cotton classification at Mint El-Bassal Cotton Exchange and its fiber properties measured in its labs, those studies revealed that there is a strong positive correlation between lint cotton grades and fiber technological properties (Strength, Fineness, Maturity,…….etc), these findings emphasize that the Egyptian handling and classification system is achieving its goal as cotton grades are correspondent to quality properties (the higher the grade the better the fiber quality properties), that enables better evaluation for spinners as high grades reflects high quality.

The gentle treatment of Egyptian cotton through its production and handling stages starting from planting, Picking, marketing, ginning, blending “Farfara” and pressing avoiding stress and rough treatments - like saw ginned cotton, seed and lint cotton cleaning - that gives Egyptian cotton an advantage by increasing its durability.

That adds another advantage to Egyptian ELS. & LS. cotton over other almost similar varieties and kept its superiority for decades back and ahead.