With more farmers taking up cotton cultivation in the state, production is likely to increase by over 30 per cent this year in Andhra Pradesh.
The total production in the state last season was 5.8 million bales (each bale contains over 170 kg of cotton) from 1.3 million hectares. This is likely to go up to 7- 8 million bales this year and the area too is expected to go up to 1.7 million hectares.
Andhra Pradesh Cotton Association president G Punnaiah Chowdary said the increase in demand in both domestic and international markets, and attractive prices led farmers to shift to cotton cultivation from commercial crops like chillies, maize and pulses.
Last year, cotton was sold at Rs 3,500 a quintal in the state. This year, the price went up to Rs 4,000 a quintal by the third week of August and is expected to touch Rs 5,000 mark by the end of the season in September, Punnaiah said.
Besides, the crop suffered heavy damage in Pakistan and China due to floods. As a result, the two countries are banking completely on India for imports.
In Guntur, the cotton centre of AP, the crop was ready in as much as 170,000 hectares by the end of June and is likely to cross 200,000 hectare by August. Last year, it was cultivated in over 150,000 hectares.
However, Punnaiah said it was difficult to assess the total yield in Guntur as farmers from other districts, including the Telangana region, bring their crop here for pressing and ginning. “Last year, though the crop was cultivated in 165,000 hectares in the district, more than 2 million bales of cotton was pressed here, which indicates that the product was mostly brought from outside the district,” he said.
Also Read
The cultivation has spread to the neighbouring Prakasam and Krishna districts, in the coastal area, besides Adilabad, Khammam, Warangal and Karimnagar districts, as farmers are finding it more profitable, when compared with the other commercial crops.
Moreover, the government’s decision to revive and upgrade ginning, spinning and weaving mills across the country helped in bringing more areas under cotton cultivation in the country.
Maharashtra, which saw just 288,000 hectares under cotton last year, increased it to 1.3 million hectares this year. The crop was heavily damaged in the state last year due to floods.
On the other hand, Punjab raised the crop in 559,000 hectares this year as against 536,000 hectares while Gujarat brought 708,000 hectares under cultivation from 618,000 hectares last year.
In 2009-10, the crop was cultivated in over 10.1 million hectares in the country producing 29.2 million bales.