Cotton pickers with "Chinese core" go global

Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporter Lu Fengbao) news: On August 30, 2026, in the modern workshop of Xinjiang Boshiran Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Boshiran"), rows of cotton pickers painted in red stood neatly aligned, ready to be shipped to markets in Central Asia. Since its founding in 2009, this national-level "little giant" enterprise, which focuses on niche technologies and specialized manufacturing, has, over the course of more than a decade, raised the localization rate of core components for its cotton pickers to 100 percent. Its products are now sold to multiple markets worldwide, making the company a benchmark for innovation in Xinjiang's high-end intelligent equipment manufacturing sector.

"For an enterprise to grow, it must break through the bottlenecks imposed by international market monopolies," said Zhang Wanqiang, senior manager of the Market and Product Center at Boshiran.

Photo shows cotton pickers on display at the exhibition hall of Xinjiang Boshiran Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo by Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily/Lu Fengbao)

In earlier years, cotton harvesting in Xinjiang relied mainly on manual labor, which was inefficient and constrained the expansion of the industry. As the wave of agricultural modernization swept in, mechanical harvesting became an inevitable trend. However, when China's domestic cotton picker industry was still in its infancy, the market was dominated by foreign brands. Domestic cotton farmers had little choice but to rely on imported equipment, bearing high costs and cumbersome after-sales services.

Boshiran was established in Wusu City of northwest China's Xinjiang in 2009. From the very beginning, the company set its sights on breaking foreign technological monopolies and achieving the localization of cotton picker production.

To realize this goal, the company has ramped up investment in independent research and development. Since its inception, Boshiran has allocated a fixed percentage of its operating revenue to R&D funding for new products. "R&D investment has increased year by year, totaling 150 million yuan (about 22.5 million U.S. dollars) over the past three years," Zhang said. Alongside increased funding, the company has built out its R&D infrastructure and now operates three R&D centers across China.

Beyond strengthening its R&D hardware, the company places equal emphasis on building a skilled talent pool. "We adopt a strategy of bringing in talent from other places and sending our people for training, creating a virtuous cycle for our research personnel," Zhang explained. The company has recruited specialists from both domestic and international sources, collaborated with universities on joint R&D projects, and sent employees abroad for further learning. Currently, Boshiran has more than 150 researchers, providing a steady stream of intellectual support for product upgrades and iterations.

Faced with the complexity of tens of thousands of components in a cotton picker, the R&D team took an unconventional approach. They broke down the machine into five core modules: the cotton picking head, hydraulic transmission system, automated electronic control, baling mechanism, and powertrain, as well as set up dedicated teams to tackle each module's technical bottlenecks one by one.

To ensure the technology was tailored to local production realities, the R&D team would embed themselves in cotton fields during every harvest season, following the machines and making on-site adjustments. This hands-on approach allowed Boshiran to accumulate a vast amount of operational data specific to Xinjiang's cotton fields.

Through sustained R&D and hard work, Boshiran has built a strong technological foundation and extensive industrialization experience in the field of cotton pickers. The company now holds more than 250 fully independent intellectual property rights.

These patents have been transformed into factory-floor products. In 2012, the first prototype of a three-row, self-propelled box-type cotton picker was successfully tested and put into mass production. In 2015, five-row and six-row models followed. In 2019, Boshiran's domestic sales of cotton pickers surpassed those of imported brands for the first time. In 2021, China's first domestically produced six-row round baler cotton picker rolled off Boshiran's production line, achieving a 100 percent localization rate for core components.

This breakthrough in localization has given Boshiran a competitive edge in the domestic market, where it now holds a market share of over 40 percent. In 2023, Boshiran exported 54 customized cotton pickers to Uzbekistan, setting a new record for Chinese-made cotton picker exports. In 2024, the company received orders for 300 cotton pickers from Uzbekistan. Today, Boshiran's products have reached markets in Central Asia, Brazil, Türkiye, Egypt, Australia, and beyond.

Building on its technological expertise in cotton pickers, Boshiran is expanding into broader agricultural machinery sectors. In June this year, a 400-horsepower high-end intelligent new-energy tractor rolled off the production line at the company's Urumqi manufacturing base, marking a key step in the company's transition from cotton harvesting machinery to full-chain agricultural equipment covering tillage, seeding, crop protection, and harvesting. The company now offers 18 product series with more than 50 individual models, covering every stage of the agricultural cycle.

"Our revenue target for this year is 2 billion yuan (about 300 million U.S. dollars), with domestic and international markets with each expected to account for half. We are confident that Chinese smart manufacturing will reach even broader markets," Zhang said.

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