Cotton from boll to T-shirt: grown, ginned, shipped, spun, sewn

By Alykhan Virani. Published 2026-10-10.

Part 5 of the series From source to store.

The National Cotton Council (NCC), a US trade group, says a 480-pound (217.7 kg) bale of cotton makes about 1,217 men’s T-shirts (year not stated). Dividing the bale’s weight by that count gives about 0.18 kg (0.39 pound) of lint per shirt, an indicative figure because the NCC states no shirt size or waste allowance. The World Bank put the Cotlook A Index, a benchmark for upland cotton priced cost and freight to a Far Eastern port, at $2.10 per kilogram in September 2026 (World Bank Pink Sheet), so on that basis the lint in one shirt was worth about $0.38. China grew the most lint in 2023, 5.62 million tonnes or 22.7% of the world’s 24.70 million (FAOSTAT), and bought the most raw cotton in 2024: 2.39 million tonnes worth $4.51 billion, 26.0% of world import value (CEPII BACI); the datasets and years differ, so the two are not a ratio. “Cotton” here means lint, the fiber after ginning. The site tracks lint and yarn but not fabric or garments.

How it is grown

The NCC says the US growing season lasts 150 to 180 days and bolls open 50 to 70 days after bloom (NCC, year not stated). USDA counted 30.03 million hectares of cotton harvested worldwide in 2024/25 (preliminary), at 867 kg of lint per hectare, for 119.55 million 480-pound bales (USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, FAS, October 2026; the marketing year runs August to July). India harvested 11.48 million hectares, 38.2% of the area, at 455 kg per hectare. China harvested 2.90 million hectares at 2,402 kg, and the United States 3.14 million at 1,000 kg (USDA FAS, 2024/25). China’s National Bureau of Statistics reports a different figure for 2024/25, 2.84 million hectares at 2,171.6 kg, because the compilers differ (USDA FAS GAIN, 4 September 2025).

Irrigation varies widely. The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) found that 13.61 million of the world’s 30.98 million hectares, 44%, were irrigated on average in 2020 to 2024, in a 271-location sample (ICAC’s own 2020 to 2024 mean area, not the USDA harvested area above), and that the rain-fed 56% still gave more than 45% of production. Irrigated shares of area were 87% in China, 35% in India, 30% in the United States, 9% in Brazil and 1% in Benin, Mali and Burkina Faso (ICAC Recorder, June 2025).

In 2013/14 picking differed by region. A table from the ICAC Recorder (Volume XXXII, No. 4), reproduced in a presentation on icac.org, shows harvesting was 100% by machine in the US regions (farms of 346 to 584 hectares) and Brazil (3,300 hectares), and 100% by hand in India (1 to 2 hectares) and Mali (2.9 hectares). Machine harvest begins in July in south Texas and in October farther north (NCC), and the USDA crop calendar runs September to December for the United States and June to August for Mato Grosso’s second crop (see the harvest calendar).

From field to bale

The picked crop is seed cotton, fiber still attached to its seed. Gins dry and clean it and pull the lint from the seed with saw gins (NCC, year not stated). The NCC counts about 162 pounds of cottonseed per 100 pounds of lint, so lint is about 38% of the combined lint and cottonseed weight (100 of 262 pounds; the site’s division, before the gin removes moisture and trash).

The bale is a standard package. The NCC describes the US gin universal density bale as about 226.8 kg (500 pounds) net, and an industry packaging committee says it averages no more than 0.84 m (33 inches) bulge to bulge, with outliers up to 0.86 m, and that this type makes up all of the US crop (Joint Cotton Industry Bale Packaging Committee guide, 2022). Market reports use another unit: USDA reports cotton in 480-pound (217.7 kg) bale equivalents (USDA FAS, October 2026).

The NCC says samples are taken from each bale, and they go to a USDA Agricultural Marketing Service classing office; USDA’s Cotton Market News listed 10 upland classing offices in the week ending 8 October 2026. The classer judges the color grade and leaf grade, while high volume instrument (HVI) machines read fiber length, micronaire (a fineness reading from airflow), strength, color, trash and uniformity (North Carolina State Extension, 2024). The NCC says color, trash, fineness and strength all influence a bale’s value. Bales then wait in warehouses until shipped (NCC, year not stated).

Moving it

In 2024 the world exported $17.35 billion of raw cotton, 8.88 million tonnes, under HS code 5201 (cotton, not carded or combed), the heading USDA also uses for unprocessed lint (CEPII BACI; USDA FAS, October 2026). Brazil sold $5.15 billion, 29.7% of value and 2.78 million tonnes, the United States $4.94 billion, 28.5% and 2.32 million tonnes, and Australia $2.35 billion, 13.6%, so three countries held 71.7% (CEPII BACI, 2024).

China took 26.0% of 2024 import value at $4.51 billion, then Bangladesh at $2.52 billion (14.5%), Vietnam at $2.45 billion (14.1%), Pakistan at $1.91 billion (11.0%) and Turkey (Türkiye) at $1.48 billion (8.5%), together 74.2% (CEPII BACI). The largest corridor was Brazil to China at $1.73 billion, 10.0% of world value (CEPII BACI, 2024; see the trade flows report).

Cotton ships in containers. The Container Handbook of GDV, the German insurers’ association, lists cotton among bale cargoes for standard box containers (year not stated), though this site holds no data on how much cotton moves that way. The Georgia Ports Authority says Savannah handled 37% of US cotton exports in fiscal year 2025 (July 2024 to June 2025), with nine weekly container services to the Indian subcontinent (press release, 17 December 2025). A 2012 USDA Agricultural Marketing Service summary of a Texas A&M study put Santos and Paranaguá at 91% of Brazil’s cotton shipments (the summary cites 2011 production; the shipment year is not stated).

The FOB, CIF and Incoterms explainer shows who pays for the sea leg. The A Index is a cost-and-freight price to a Far Eastern port (USDA FAS, October 2026), while CEPII converts BACI import values to FOB by removing estimated freight.

From fiber to fabric to garment

At the mill, bales are opened and blended, carding turns the fibers into a web and then a loose rope called sliver, and spinning draws and twists it into yarn, on ring frames or on open-end rotors that the NCC says can spin five to six times as fast as ring frames (NCC, year not stated). Domestic yarn production usually accounts for more than 90% of domestic cotton use (USDA FAS, October 2026). Mills used 39.0 million bales in China, 25.5 million in India, 10.6 million in Pakistan, 8.2 million in Bangladesh, 8.0 million in Vietnam and 7.1 million in Turkey in 2024/25 (USDA FAS, October 2026). Yarn is traded too: world exports under HS 5205, labeled cotton yarn on this site, were $11.28 billion in 2024, led by India at 30.1% and Vietnam at 17.8% (CEPII BACI).

Yarn is then woven or knitted. The NCC says most cotton is knit on circular machines that turn out a tube of fabric (NCC, year not stated). USDA FAS says dyeing typically happens at the fabric mill and that cut-and-sew and finishing assemble the apparel (October 2026).

The site does not track garments, so it cannot rank garment exporters. The WTO estimates that Asia supplied 70.6% of world textile and clothing exports in 2022 and that agricultural inputs such as cotton and wool made up 10.9% of the value added in them. It put foreign inputs at 64.2% of the value added in Vietnam’s textile and clothing exports, which it describes as largely cut-make-trim work on imported materials (WTO Global Value Chains Sectoral Profile, 2024, data for 2022).

How much of export value is distribution and transport?

This site has no data on how finished garments reach the shop. The WTO’s value-added accounts show something narrower: inputs from wholesale and retail trade and from transport services supplied 15.4% of the value added in world textile and clothing exports in 2022 (WTO, 2024).

Where the chain is thin

How much does drought change the crop?

In 2022 Texas planted 3.19 million hectares (7.88 million acres) of cotton and harvested 0.84 million hectares (2.08 million acres), 26.4% of what it planted, against 87.4% in 2021. The United States produced 14.68 million 480-pound bales in 2022, against 17.52 million in 2021 (USDA NASS, Crop Production 2022 Summary, January 2023). NASS’s weather summary attributes the shortfall to drought in the southern Plains, with record-high abandonment estimated for Texas.

What happens when one region grows most of a country’s crop?

Xinjiang grew 5.69 million of China’s 6.16 million tonnes of cotton in 2024/25, 92.3%, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (reported by USDA FAS, 4 September 2025); USDA’s own figure for China’s 2024/25 crop is 6.97 million tonnes in its October 2026 circular, so the 92.3% is the Bureau’s share, not USDA’s. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a Withhold Release Order on 13 January 2021 covering cotton and tomatoes produced in whole or in part in Xinjiang and downstream products, including those made elsewhere with those inputs, citing indicators of forced labor. Since 21 June 2022 CBP applies a rebuttable presumption under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that goods made wholly or in part in Xinjiang, or by listed entities, are barred from entry; the importer must respond fully to CBP and show by clear and convincing evidence that no forced labor was used (CBP). This post reports the rules, not a finding of its own.

Does the yarn stage depend on one country?

The China Cotton Textile Association and the China National Textile and Apparel Council put China’s spinning capacity at more than 50% of the world’s, 110 million spindles at the end of 2022 (as reported by USDA FAS, 4 September 2025). Several large buyers grow almost no cotton: in 2025/26 Vietnam grew 3 thousand bales and its mills used 8.15 million, and Bangladesh grew 153 thousand and used 7.4 million (USDA FAS, October 2026). The producing, exporting and processing guide explains why the rankings differ.

What can hold up the boxes?

In 2008, a USDA-funded Texas A&M study reported, Atlantic and Gulf ports became increasingly inaccessible for containerized cotton, and Delta and Southeast cotton shipments to China were increasingly sent through West Coast ports instead of Savannah; the study says congestion had eased since then with the economic downturn (Rosson and others, May 2011).

Follow the data

• The cotton commodity page has the producer and trade tables, and the price page tracks the Cotlook A Index, which stood at $2.10 per kilogram in September 2026, 22.1% above September 2025 (World Bank Pink Sheet).
• The trade flows report maps the corridors to China, Vietnam and Bangladesh, and the harvest calendar shows who picks when.
• Country pages cover China, India and Vietnam; the glossary defines FOB, CIF and Incoterms.

The garment and distribution figures here come from the WTO and USDA, not this site’s pipeline. Nothing here is investment advice.

Prices are monthly benchmark averages that lag the market; informational only, not investment advice.