The South India Cotton Association (SICA) has chalked out strategy to double production of Extra Long Staple (ELS) which is nine lakh bales per year presently.
It has a proposal to increase the area under cultivation from 10,000 acres to 50,000 acres of Bt cotton.
K N Viswanathan, Secretary, SICA said the strategy is to hold Front Line Demonstration (FLD) on cotton farming for group of cotton farmers from Warangal and Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka by January 2006.
The emphasis of FLD would be to increase the acreage of Sara II, the ELS cotton variety by Super Spinning Mills of Coimbatore, funded under its R&D efforts.
SICA is also plans to set up a Cotton Agro Foundation in association with the Southern India Mills Association (SIMA), to develop cotton contract farming with the help of government funded organisations.