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| Pre-monsoon rain aids cotton, turmeric acreage |
| Dilip Kumar Jha / Mumbai Aug 15, 2009, 00:19 IST |
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The area under cultivation for cotton and turmeric has gone up despite deficient rainfall. This rise has been due to adequate pre-monsoon showers in the major crop-growing areas of Maharashtra, Gujarat and the southern coastal states.
Both the commodities are sown during pre-monsoon rains in May-June, well ahead of the sowing of other kharif crops.
An annual rainfall of 1,000 to 2,000 mm is sufficient for both these crops. Since, this much rain is insufficient for other kharif crops, including paddy, pulses, and sugarcane, farmers get enough incentives to shift to turmeric and cotton in case of insufficient rains.
Since a normal-to-weak monsoon was forecast for the current season and pre-monsoon showers were sufficient for turmeric and cotton, farmers shifted their focus to these two crops against the background of rising prices.
While, the area under cotton jumped 17 per cent to 9.29 million hectare (ha) from 7.94 million ha last year, turmeric witnessed15-20 per cent rise in acreage from last year’s level of 2 lakh ha.
According to a report from HDFC Securities, prospects of rain have become bleak in all regions except some pockets in the east and the north-east. Rain deficiency in the country rose from 19 per cent on July 22 to 28 per cent on August 9. In the northwestern region — a major grain producing zone — rainfall has been 40 per cent below normal.
However, a report from NCDEX has forecast cotton output to be fairly good on favourable climatic conditions and satisfactory crop progress across the entire producing belt. Cotton is a 90-120 day crop largely dependent on monsoon.
India is the largest producer, consumer and exporter of turmeric in the world. It accounts for 80 per cent of the world output of 8-9 lakh tonnes. Apart from India, turmeric is cultivated in China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Central America.
Turmeric output is likely to increase this year by 15-20 per cent to 44-45 lakh bags of 75 kg each as against 39-40 lakh bags in the previous year.
Since, consumption estimates of 53-54 lakh bags surpasses the overall availability of 44-45 lakh bags, prices in the spot market have been on an upswing. Turmeric prices jumped 62 per cent to Rs 8,363 a quintal, while prices of cotton (Shankar) marginally declined by 1 per cent since June 1.
According to the latest cotton industry estimates, cotton output this year is likely to be 290 lakh bales of 170 kg each against 315 lakh bales last year.
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