University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

The Ginning Phase
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Ginning is the process of removing seed from cotton fibres (lint). The process
involves their physical removal either with saw blades (saw-gin machine) or roller
blades (roller-gin machine). Even though chemicals are not used in the ginning stage
and the process is the same for both organic and conventional cotton, a price
premium can still be achieved at this stage. But, in order to gain full organic
certification a mill has to store and process organic cotton separately from non
organic crops.
There are some other sources of value at this stage. These are the by-products of the
ginning process, principally cattle feed and cotton seed oil which are produced after
the seed has been separated from the lint. At the moment these by-products are sold
at the same prices as conventional ones because chemicals such as caustic soda are
used in their manufacturing. This is an area where additional value could be achieved,
were different, organically-approved, chemicals to be used, allowing both cattle feed
and cotton seed oil to be sold under organic certification. In fact, ginners who have
already paid a premium price for the organic cotton crop then lose that premium by
failing to sustain organic certification through to the by-products. Table 7 shows the
value addition accruing from various products obtained during the ginning process.
Table 8 shows the value addition possible at the ginning stage.
One of the reasons why organic cotton commands a premium at this stage is because
there is a perception held by some buyers that the organic cotton fibre has a longer
staple length and fewer impurities. These are held to result in a better quality yarn,
and thus fabric. Explanations for this include the fact that the ginning mills tend to be
located close to the organic farms, and hence the crop suffers less damage in
transportation, and also because organic crops generally tend to be handled more
carefully than conventional ones. However evidence is equivocal on whether the
fibres are in fact different.