The first harvest of “gunpowder” cotton has ripened in Ukraine

1 October, 2024 Cotton fields. Illustration photo The first experimental harvest of special cotton varieties needed for the production of artillery gunpowder has ripened in southern Ukraine.

European Pravda reported on this. Cotton planted within a government project to produce raw materials for ammunition has ripened in fields in two locations in the Odesa region. This is an experimental harvest of "several 10-hectare plots".

In the spring, five imported varieties were sown in these areas. The Ministry of Agrarian Policy has already received interim experiment results: the first cotton "boxes" have formed and opened, meaning the plant can ripen in the Ukrainian climate. "This experiment is necessary to understand whether cotton can grow there at all and whether it can be used for strategic industrial purposes.

We've already seen that it can grow by 99%," Ihor Vishtak, director of the Agricultural Development Department at the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, shared. Next, the cotton will be harvested in several stages to send the cotton at different stages of maturation for examination to the laboratories of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Strategic Industry. They will determine whether the fiber is suitable for the production of long-range artillery powder - it must be up to 0.15 mm long.

Cotton and gunpowder

The media noted that cotton cultivation is currently an environmental experiment, not an industrial project.

According to preliminary estimates of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, cotton can theoretically be sown on 10,000 hectares in Ukraine. At this stage, it is too early to talk about industrial cotton production: it is still unknown whether the plant varieties will take root in other regions of the country. In addition, 2024 was marked by an abnormal heat wave, which does not guarantee a successful harvest in the coming years.

In addition, even if large volumes of cotton are successfully grown, producing gunpowder or nitrocellulose will require developing a large technological chain worth hundreds of millions of dollars. "In three years, we have received only one offer from a Western company that offered to build a plant for EUR20 million to process nitrocellulose into gunpowder. It was about 600 tons of gunpowder per year, which would be enough for 160,000 122-millimeter rounds of ammunition.

But this is only one, the simplest stage in the technological chain," Belbas shared. Militarnyi previously reported that European arms producers had discussed their serious dependence on Chinese materials used in powder production. According to the International Trade Centre, China accounts for almost half of cotton linter pulp traded globally.

Germany, Sweden, and Belgium are the largest importers of the material, and they remain the primary ammunition producers in the EU.