Farmers Review Africa Sept/Oct 2019 Farmers Review Africa September - October 2019 dig | Page 24

FEATURE
Cotton Processing and
Ginning Equipment
Background
The word cotton has been derived from the
Arabic word “qutun”. Cotton can be dated back
at least 7000 years in samples found in caves in
Mexico. 3000BC cotton was grown and used in
Egypt and
Pakistan area.
First cotton seed was brought to the Cape in 1690,
although Natives in the area used wild varieties
of cotton already as early as 1516. Since 1846
cotton was produced in several areas in South
Africa, and the first Cotton Gin was installed in
Barberton in 1922.
Since then several Gins have been installed
throughout South Africa, and currently we have
7 operational modern Gins in South Africa.
22 | September - October 2019
Although South Africa do have Spinning Facilities
to process cotton fibre, most of the production
is exported. Cotton is produced in several
areas in South Africa, and also throughout our
neighbouring countries, up the east coast of
Africa, Western Africa, and worldwide.
Processing
After harvesting the cotton from the cotton fields,
it used to be cleaned by hand, and the fibres have
also been separated from the seed by hand, but
this was time consuming and one worker could
only remove about 1lb of fibre per day.
This process of picking the fibres from the seed
is known as ginning. The Churka gin have been
developed and used two wooden pinch rollers
and hand turned, but it was also very slow.