BELO HORIZONTE*, Brazil — Brazil has made major strides in cotton sustainability and traceability, but it still needs to improve fiber quality if it wants to move prices closer to those of US cotton, according to Aurélio Pavinato, chief executive officer of SLC Agrícola, one of the country’s largest producers.
“In short fibers, our cotton is worse than US cotton,” Pavinato said Wednesday during a panel at the 15th Brazilian Cotton Congress. “We also have a bigger stickiness problem. There is still a quality gap that we need to close over the next few years if we really want a product that meets the same standards as US cotton.”
Pavinato said Brazil also needs to move away from so-called take-up, in which buyers visually inspect cotton before accepting it, and rely instead on standardized laboratory testing.
“Australia and the United States no longer do this,” he said. “We need to advance on quality standards so that when a customer buys Brazilian cotton, they know exactly what they are getting, backed by a laboratory report.”
Those changes could help Brazilian cotton narrow its premium gap with US supplies, Pavinato said. Data from the agricultural consultancy Agroconsult showed Brazilian cotton trading at a premium of about 600 points, compared with more than 1,000 points for US cotton.
Quality Gains Support Market Share
Improving both the quality of Brazilian cotton and buyers’ perception of it could help the country extend the market-share gains it has made in recent years, particularly as US production and exports have lost ground.
Brazilian cotton now accounts for 49% of the Chinese market, 37% in Bangladesh and 33% in India, according to Agroconsult data presented at the event.
André Pessôa, managing partner at Agroconsult, said Brazil’s recent gains are already partly the result of gradual improvements in fiber quality.
He pointed to the absence of recent results from a US cotton industry study tracking buyers’ perceptions of fiber quality. Previous editions in 2017, 2019 and 2021 consistently showed Brazilian cotton at a disadvantage, he said.
“To me, it is very telling that the Americans did not release the study in 2023 and 2025,” Pessôa said.
Demand Is The Next Challenge
Quality improvements alone will not be enough, Pavinato said. Brazil also needs stronger marketing — both to promote its cotton and to help expand global consumption at a time when demand has been broadly stagnant.
“We are in a period of stable demand, and we are taking market share from other countries,” he said. “But why isn’t global cotton demand growing? We need to develop technologies — perhaps blends of cotton and polyester, or different garments and fabrics — that offer new solutions to customers.”
A combination of better quality and stronger demand would allow Brazil to continue expanding its cotton acreage over the coming years, Pavinato said.
“Just as we doubled planted area over the past 20 years, we could double it again in 20 years — or even in 10,” he said. “It is very easy for Brazil to significantly expand planted area if the demand is there.”
* The journalist traveled to the event at Bayer’s invitation.
This story was translated from the original Portuguese with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by The AgriBiz editorial staff.
