Floods cause cotton produce to remain low

13 Jan '11

2 min read

Heavy rains coupled with massive floods in Australia have substantially devastated the country and also the cotton crop. This may result in a sharp fall in the cotton production, which may be far below than those expected before the floods.

The overall harvest for the 2010-11 season is expected to fall short of the earlier estimates by eight percent to stand at around 3.95 million bales. But then, the production during June-July 2010 which exceeded the 2001-02's record harvest of 3.52 million bales is a new record in itself.

However, despite the damage caused by the floods, this year's output would still be two times higher than the last season's output of 1.8 million bales when drought devastated the crops.

There has been a sharp rise in the cotton prices during the recent times, which is mainly because of the supply apprehensions, and similar other issues are seen to further raise the prices of the commodity.

Queensland, which is the worst affected area in the country hit by massive floods, was expected to produce around 0.94 million bales of cotton, including 0.45 million bales of irrigated crops.

Similarly, the New South Wales region in the north was expected to generate an output of about three million bales, with 2.5 million tons of irrigated crops.

However, the St George region to the south-west of Queensland, which contributes around one third of the state's overall cotton production, has remained unaffected by the recent floods owing to the construction of levee banks undertaken after massive floods had devastated the region last year.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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