Despite India being the world’s largest producer of cotton for three successive years, many industry experts foresee its supply shortfall by 2025 if its productivity is not enhanced on a war footing. According to Indian Cotton Federation (ICF) president J Thulasidharan, research efforts should be strengthened to double cotton yield in the country.

Citing the example of Australia, which has only 15 per cent of the area under cotton cultivation with at least four times higher productivity per hectare compared to India, Thulasidharan lamented the complete lack of agronomy research at present in India.

Pointing out that front line demonstrations (FLDs), an approach to provide an direct interface between researchers and farmers, alone would not suffice, he said the fund allocation for conduct of FLDs was fixed 25 years back and needs a review, according to Indian media reports.

His comment comes as the fourth two-day all India bi-yearly cotton conference starts on August 17 in Coimbatore. Organised jointly by ICF and Bathinda-based Indian Cotton Association Limited (ICAL), the event is expected to focus on the two major issues, volume and quality.

The conference theme is ‘Indian Cotton Scenario in 2018-19’. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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