Cotton acreage to hit 10 mn hectare in 09-10

For the first time ever in the history, area under cotton is estimated to hit 10-million-hectares (ha) in the cotton year (October-September) 2009-10, due to deficient monsoon and a rise in the minimum support price (MSP) during the previous season.

Since planting is still on in southern states, including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, a conservative estimate by the Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) forecast an unreported area between 3.5-4 lakh ha which if clubbed with the reported area of 96.55 lakh ha would reach the milestone level.

This is significant as farmers in southern states diverted area mainly from rainfed crop including groundnut, soybean, sugarcane to cotton due to 25 per cent rainfall deficiency during the current monsoon season.
 

STATISTICS
Year	Area	Production	Yield
2009 - 10*	96.55	305.00	537.03
2008-09	94.14	307.00	554.39
2007-08	91.44	280.00	520.56
2006-07	86.77	241.00	472.17
2005-06	86.77	241.00	472.17
2004-05	87.86	243.00	470.18
2003-04	76.30	179.00	298.82
2002-03	76.67	136.00	301.55
2001-02	87.30	158.50	308.65
2000-01	85.76	140.00	277.52
1999-00	87.31	156.00	303.75
* Reported area as on August 29, 2009 (Area in lakh ha, production in lakh bales of 170 kg each and yield in kg per ha)

“By the time the 48 per cent hike in MSP was announced in August 2008, majority of sowing was completed. Farmers had already made their choices for more remunerative crops by then. Therefore, no sizeable benefit of the hike was seen last year. But, the farmers showed great interest in the cotton crop this year as it can be grown even with less rainfall,” said A B Joshi, textile commissioner, Government of India.

As on August 29, the total area shows a marginal increase of 2.65 per cent at 96.55 lakh ha from the previous season’s projected area of 94.06 lakh ha. However, the area under bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), may rise by 10.55 per cent to 76.28 lakh ha, representing 80 per cent of the total sowing area. Whereas, the total area under conventional (non-Bt) cotton nosedived 19.11 per cent at 20.27 lakh ha.

Commercialised in India in 2002, Bt cotton has been adopted by farmers rapidly, thereby, covering over 80 per cent of total sown area under cotton.

The introduction of engineered seed has also changed India’s position on the world cotton map. Today, India has emerged as the second largest producer and exporter of cotton in the world just in a short span of seven years, said Sekhar Natarajan, Indian Regional Lead, Monsanto Holdings.

Although, some varietal sowing of conventional cotton seed would continue, we are moving towards 100 per cent Bt cotton regime, said Natarajan. Joshi also felt that the rate of Bt adoption was faster in India to any other country in the world.

In a significant development, the Technology Mission on Cotton (TMC), a technology upgradation mission for ginning of cotton started a decade ago by the government of India, has also helped in growing cotton of world standard which fetched remuneration to Indian farmers at par with their overseas counterparts.