Boost research to double the yield of cotton Indian Cotton Federation
India falls amongst the largest cotton and cotton yarn producer around the world. It has duties upon it to play a progressive role in fulfilling the domestic and global demands of raw and processed cotton for apparel and textile products. India has shown greater competition in the global textile markets as a result of its improved strategies and industrial foresightedness.
The country has gone through agricultural and textile trade reforms after the 1990s that have made agriculture the leading industry of the country. At the present time, the country is also seeking further structural and strategic reforms in the textile industry and agriculture industry to make the demand and supply equal in domestic and international textile markets.
India is productively utilizing its spinning and weaving capacity to produce maximum yarn and fabric out of cotton along with synthetic fiber. The country is facing an increase in the cotton products from its local markets, therefore, it imports cotton and cotton products in good amount while the country is also being driven to export textile products to stay competitive in the global textile markets. India has to follow international standards to stay in the global market. The global quality standards align the country’s cultivation, processing, spinning, weaving, and production of cotton products in a regulated form so that the country’s production is not ejected by international customers.
The Need of Time
Since India is one of the leading cotton exporter and importer and is an international center of focus for cotton goods, therefore it has to maintain its sustainable supply to the textile markets. It is predicted that India’s cotton production and cotton product supply will decrease by the year 2025. Hence president of Indian Cotton Federation (ICF), J. Thulasidharan, is very concerned about this matter and has come up with new suggestions for India’s survival in cotton markets.
According to J. Thulasidharan India should focus on cultivating cotton smartly in the same fields to increase the cotton production. This needs a lot of research work as it is the need of time and to meet this goal, the country should focus on research and development methodology.
The president has presented the example of Australia who is successfully producing four times more volume of cotton from each hectare as compared to India. Australia just has 15% of its total area under cultivation while India’s major industry is agriculture. This fact proves that the country needs more research to find out ways of producing more crop in the same land in the same time. This is the only way to survive the country’s economy, repute and global textile market shares.
The funds are being allocated for improvement of agriculture from last 25 years but nothing progressive enough has come out. The Front Line Demonstrations (FLDs), where the researchers are asked to advise and guide farmers about the advanced ways cultivation and harvesting has proved nothing special in these many years. Therefore, the time has come when the funds are utilized more seriously to make wise decisions to improve the country’s cotton production.
The lack of agronomy research is keeping the country behind in many areas although the country has good potential to increase its cotton production and export. The president also pointed out that only producing increased cotton quantity again is not the only goal, but producing more volume but high-quality volume is the motive of this whole research and development plan.
Conclusion
The demand for raw cotton and processed cotton has increased in the Indian local markets and the international markets as well. The demand is expected to be increasing in the future. To keep the country surviving in the cotton markets, India needs to respond quickly to the changes it should implement to enhance its production and processing of cotton. India has good scope in raw cotton, processed cotton, yarn, cotton fabric, and synthetic fabric. Ruining the production potentials and export opportunities is not a suitable decision for a progressive country like India. Therefore, the country should pay more concern to boost its cotton industry on the basis of efficient agricultural industry.