Farmers from Shangqiu, in central China's Henan province, arrive in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on Thursday for a short break before heading to the city of Bole, where they will work as cotton pickers. Xinjiang will produce cotton from 23 million mu (1.53 million hectares) of land this year. The cotton industry will need one million pickers during the two-month harvest period that ends in November. The region is expected to produce 2.7 million tons of cotton, about one-third of the country's total. Most cotton pickers are women and come from Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and China's most populous province, Henan. Xinhua