Area under cotton up by 52,000 hectares

Good returns

Last year, almost 80 per cent of the cotton was procured by the Cotton Corporation of India at Rs 5,825 a quintal. The remaining was bought by private traders between Rs 5,900- Rs 6,000 a quintal.

Rajnish Jain, Maur arhtiya

Cotton cultivation

higher this year

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 11

Farmers in the state have gone in for cotton cultivation on a much bigger scale this year. The area under cultivation of the “white gold” has gone up by 52,000 hectares this year.

Data available from the Agriculture Department shows that against 2.51 lakh hectare area under cotton last year, the crop had been sown on 3.03 lakh hectares. An assured market at the minimum support price MSP announced by the government has led to the new confidence among farmers in the cotton crop.

“Last year, almost 80 per cent of the cotton crop was procured by the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) at the MSP of Rs 5,825 a quintal. The remaining was bought by private traders at rates varying between Rs 5,900- Rs 6,000 a quintal,” Rajnish Jain, a leading commission agent for cotton in Maur, said.

The Centre yesterday increased the MSP by Rs 200 (Rs 6,025 a quintal for long staple variety). “Price is the biggest deciding factor for farmers, and the last two seasons saw farmers getting good returns, leading to more area under cotton crop,” Director, Agriculture, Sukhdev Singh Brar said, adding that this has helped in reducing the area under water-guzzling paddy.

Harsimran Singh, a young cotton grower from Mansa: “The three farm laws enacted last year also forced many farmers to have a rethink on growing paddy, as fear looms large that MSP on wheat and paddy would stop. Though the paddy MSP has been hiked by Rs 72 a quintal, it is much less as compared to the hike in the cotton MSP. Also, private buying of cotton is much more than the private buying of non- basmati paddy, and this is done at a higher rate than the MSP,” he said, explaining why farmers in Malwa belt have gone in for cotton cultivation.