Cotton production may reach record on genetically altered seed

Production may total 32.5 million bales (1 bale= 170 kg) in the year starting October, compared with 31.5 million bales estimated for this year's crop, Textiles Commissioner Jagadip Narayan Singh said from New Delhi yesterday.

A record harvest may boost India's exports to countries including China, the world's biggest user of the fibre, and increase competition for suppliers from US and Uzbekistan. Higher production may also weigh on cotton prices, which gained 46 per cent the past year as US farmers reduced planting in favour of wheat and soybeans.

Land planted to gene-modified cotton seeds, including Monsanto's Bollgard II variety, may rise as much as 10 per cent next year, Singh said.

India's average per-hectare yield has almost doubled to 560 kg since it allowed farmers to use modified seeds for the first time in 2002. Farmers sowed gene-altered seeds across two- thirds of the 9.6 million hectares (23.7 million acres) planted to cotton this year, up from 50 per cent a year earlier.

Chinese Demand
Higher output and improved fiber quality may boost India's exports next season as Chinese mills turn to India to bridge a decline in raw material from the US, the world's biggest supplier, D K Nair, director-general of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, said.

"You have a situation where exports are more profitable for traders than selling to the domestic mills,'' Nair said by telephone from New Delhi. "Rising Chinese demand and lower US production is pushing up exports.'' Prices may stabilize around 70 cents a pound for the rest of the year, he said.

Exports
India's exports may total 8.5 million bales in the year ending September 30, up 47 per cent from a year earlier, according to the nation's Cotton Advisory Board.

China will increase cotton imports 37 per cent in the marketing year starting August 1 as demand rises and production slips, the US Department of Agriculture said. Imports will rise to 3.7 million tonnes, or 17 million bales, from an estimated 2.7 million tonnes this year.