Cotton acreage is on the rise in the Indian state of Maharashtra, and so is the crop’s yield. Positive developments like those have been enough to cause a rise in India’s cotton exports for the year, despite the government’s recently retracted four-month ban on cotton exports. Mohit Shah, director of Mumbai-based Gill & Co. Pvt. Ltd., told Cotton International that a number of factors contributed to the better-than-expected results.
“Cotton acreage in Maharashtra is forecasted to increase significantly for the 2010-11 cotton season,” he said, “due to the following reasons:
1. The farmers have received good returns against their seed cotton production.
2. The main competing crops like soybeans have not been remunerative when compared to cotton.
3. Cotton has been easy to maintain vis-a-vis soybeans in terms of cost of production, as well as the input costs.
4. BT cotton has obviously played a wider role in increasing cotton productivity in Maharashtra, and there is still a significant scope of increasing in the future.
5. Weather has been extremely beneficial for the cotton sowing till date, and crop progress is very favorable.”
Meanwhile, the Indian Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) has estimated that, despite the government’s May-through-August ban on cotton exports, shipments actually increased by almost four percent this year, from 8 million bales to 8.3 million bales (170 kg each). The government announced a ban on cotton exports in April 2010, when prices shot up and fears grew that there would not be enough material to meet the demands of domestic textile industry, which relies heavily on cotton. Many textile companies and associations urged the government to keep the ban in place until next season, and J. Thulasidharan, chairman of the The Southern India Mills Association, said many spinning mills would have to shut down for several months because their cotton supplies would be exhausted. Estimates put the currently available cotton stock at just over 4 million bales, down from more than 7 million bales at this time last year.
This year’s total cotton crop in India should reach 29.5 million bales, up from 29.2 million bales last year. Total cotton acreage is expected to increase next year as well, from 10.3 million hectares to 10.5 million hectares.