Monsoon progress cheers cotton players

The advance of the southwestern monsoon in the last fortnight has accelerated cotton sowing and brought a bit of relief to the domestic cotton industry. However, the next week is very crucial and will have a major impact on the crop output. The cotton sector was in throes of anxieties over deficient rain last month.

The latest statistics from the agriculture ministry point out that cotton sowing has covered 57 per cent of the normal acreage under the crop. In fact, last week showed a clear signal of speeding up of sowing which improved by 155 per cent to 48.07 lakh hectares.

D K Nair, secretary general of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, said, “The crop situation depends on how the monsoon turns around next week. Situation, no doubt, has improved but still many of the cotton growing regions are yet to see rain.”

The factor which pushed up sowing was rainfall in central part of the country in states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. These states account for almost half of the entire cotton production in the country.

O P Agarwal, executive director of the Cotton Association of India, said, “The situation is far better than what it was a fortnight ago. It will be positive for the industry and I believe that the overall acreage for the year will not squeeze down the crop size, which will be close to 300 lakh bales.”

Global cotton magazine, Cotton Outlook, in its weekly newsletter, said, “The recent advance of the southwestern monsoon has lent renewed strength to optimism about the prospective size of this season’s cotton crop.”

Subhash Grover, managing director of the Cotton Corporation of India, said it was too early to comment and added that situation would become clear only by the end of July. Another expert from the sector said, “The central part of the country may add more production but crop size from the northern region may decline as rains are still not adequate.”

Sunil Khandelwal, chief financial officer of Alok Industries, said, “Covering 57 per cent of the normal cotton acreage so far is normal and there should be no further worries. We expect that the cultivation will improve resulting the crop size and prices getting stable.”

As per the estimates of the Cotton Advisory Board, the cotton crop size was 290 lakh bales during the last cotton season, a decline of around 8 per cent, against the previous year’s crop of 315 lakh bales.