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G. Gurumurthy

The phase-2 study covered 20 of the 28 agriculture marketing committees run under the State's Directorate of Agricultural Marketing.

Coimbatore , Sept. 4

The phase-II of a private study for cotton marketing infrastructure and contamination-free cotton marketing under the Tamil Nadu Government's agriculture produce marketing committees has suggested improving the cotton regulated marketing yards in Thanjavur delta region, which witness heavy arrivals of summer cotton raised in the rice fallows.

The joint study by the Coimbatore-based South India Cotton Association and the Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has identified the regulated cotton marketing yards at Tiruvarur, Kuttalam, Myladuthurai and Sembanarkoil, which witness heavy arrivals of cotton kappas, especially the MCU-7 varieties during the season as the centres that can be infrastructurally developed so as to benefit both the growers and the cotton trade.

The study, as a follow up of SICA-SIMA's first such study held in 2001, covered 20 of the 28 agriculture marketing committees run under the State's Directorate of Agricultural Marketing with a view to assess its current status and infrastructural bottlenecks in handling cotton marketing. While the phase one study covered eight cotton marketing committees and their respective cotton marketing yards, the current study covered the remaining 12 marketing committees' cotton marketing facilities.

The SICA-SIMA report was released at the 27th annual general meeting of the SICA held here recently, by noted farm scientist, Dr V. Santhanam, who was also involved in the preparation of the study report. The chairman of the Lakshmi Mills Company and the Emeritus president of SICA, Mr G.K. Sundaram, received the first copy of the report.

Spelling out the major findings of the second report, Dr Santhanam said the fall in the yield and fibre quality in the MCU-7, one of the popular varieties grown in the Thanjavur delta region had widely engaged the delta farmers' attention. Varietal purification of MCU-7 along with strengthening the delta region's marketing yard infrastructure through a pilot project would infuse confidence among the growers in the rice fallow region.

Involvement of self-help groups in cotton production activities and extension of insurance would also increase the cotton output from the delta region.

The private study has also highlighted the need for extending the existing pledge loan facility offered to the growers who opted to store their produce at the market committee yards to the cotton traders so as to encourage higher volume of transaction at the government controlled yards.

Dr Santhanam also noted with happiness that since the SICA-SIMA came out with its first study, the interest rate on the produce pledge loans extended to the farmers using the marketing yard had been brought down to nine per cent from the earlier 12-14.5 per cent interest band.

The latest report had also found that under the cotton market infrastructure development, Rs 10 crore was spent for upgrading the market yard facilities at cotton markets of Villupuram, Tirupur, Moolanur and Coimbatore, which included Rs 3.6 crore share from the technology mission on cotton.

According to Mr Viswanathan, Secretary of the SICA, one of the objectives of the cotton market committee infrastructure development was to achieve higher cotton transaction under the regulated marketing committee forum and greater transparency in such sales. At present these yards attract only 20 per cent of the physical arrivals of the cotton and with upgradation in facility, we hope their physical cotton transaction rate would rise up to 40 per cent in near future.

More Stories on : Cotton | Trends | Standards & Benchmarks | Tamil Nadu

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