Tackling cotton's decline

BS OPINION

Globally, this decline is estimated to be from 48 per cent to 41 per cent in the past couple of decades, but in India the drop has been from over 70 per cent to 55 per cent. This trend may not cause too much alarm because total cotton consumption is still rising, albeit at a reduced rate.

Nevertheless, the sharp drop in market share must not be ignored, especially because the Indian market for textile products is different from most other countries where the climatic factors provide synthetic fibres an edge over cotton in terms of comfort, apart from the inherent advantages of convenience and cost.

In India, the climatic conditions weigh in favour of a natural fibre like cotton. This apart, cotton's loss of ground to synthetic fibres seems odd because of the availability of technology that can help cotton compete with its rival fibres in terms of consumer acceptance.

Indeed, India enjoys the unique distinction of being the only country in the world where cotton belonging to all the four botanical species (arboreum, herbeceum, hirsutum and barbadense) is grown.

Besides, there are naturally coloured cottons to cater to a premium market. A range of cotton varieties, including hybrids (India was the first country to evolve a cotton hybrid), are now available with fibre of different length, strength, thickness and other traits to suit the varying requirements of mills.

However, many of the old varieties, producing lint of poor fibre strength and short length, which were suitable for the handloom sector and the older generation of mill machinery, have now outlived their utility but continue to be cultivated.

This is posing problems of overall quality, as good and poor quality cotton tend to get mixed at the farm or mandi level. Such mixing also takes place at the ginning factories. This problem needs to be tackled by de-notifying the outmoded varieties.

Further, though indigenous techniques have been developed to impart desired characters like crease-resistance and even fire-resistance to the cotton fabric through chemical treatment, their adoption by industry is still limited.

This is partly because much of the research and development work has been done in the public sector, which has a tradition of confining itself to technological issues with little thought for commercial application.

Under the circumstances, a strategy is needed to facilitate commercialisation of the new cotton. With sections of the clothing market moving towards cotton in many countries, this becomes all the more important from the viewpoint of ensuring a bright future for India's textile industry.