Production cuts loom large for cotton seed firms, farmers to be impacted

Producers' margins under threat on rising cost and falling realisation, R&D to get impacted badly

Squeezed between rising cost of production and falling realisation, cotton seed companies are planning to cut production for the kharif sowing 2019 which may impact India's 8 million farmers adversely.

Cotton seed producers claim that their production costs have risen by 20 per cent the past three years, especially since the Bollgard II Bt cotton price was fixed at Rs 800 per packet of 450 each two years ago. But, after stagnating for two years, the government of India decided to cut its prices by Rs 60 or 7.5 per cent to Rs 740 per packet for the current year.

The cut was