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G. Gurumurthy

Plans to cut production cost through lower input costs

Coimbatore March 20 Cotton cultivation has taken a backseat in Tamil Nadu in the last two decades due to high cultivation cost and uneconomical operation arising out of poor marketing infrastructure.

Factors that hindered cotton tract expansion in the State are unremunerative prices and scarce labour.

These are among the views that were aired at a cotton farmers' awareness meet that was held jointly by Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and the State Agriculture Department at Chinnakanur, a part of the traditional black soil cotton tract of Annur near here on Tuesday.

At the meeting, the farmers were appraised of the positive factors such as introduction of Bt cotton, which has resulted in promotion of contract farming that facilitates creating linkage between the users and the producers, according Mr Ajit Pillai, Deputy General Manager, CCI, Coimbatore.

The CCI official said contract farming had brought the scope of reducing production cost through lower input costs including quality seeds and nutrients facilitated under the integrated cotton cultivation mechanism.

The corporation too is now actively involved in promoting contract farming which could bring together various intermediary agencies involved in the agriculture chain.

Tamil Nadu, currently, depending entirely on cotton supplies from outside the State to run its textile mills and farmers, can take advantage of these to get back to cotton cultivation in a big way, Mr Pillai felt.

Among the reasons for cotton cultivation losing its charm among the farmers in Tamil Nadu are the slow transfer of technology, poor infrastructure at the marketing yards, presence of higher rate of trash content (6-8 per cent) and the problems posed by multiplicity of cotton varieties leading to fibre mix-ups giving room for quality disputes.

These cumulatively turned cotton cultivation in the State unremunerative, he added.

Annur tract, which used to have about 9,000 acres under cotton 10 years ago, has now only 2,000 acres. This area raised traditionally the MCU-5, LRA and SVPR varieties.

CCI, which has also taken up cotton contract farming in Tirupathur area, expressed its willingness to organise contract farming in Annur area if the mills in the region were interested.

Mr Pillai told the farmers about the market support system available for the MCU/LRA varieties in the form of minimum support prices.

The Centre has this year fixed the minimum support price for varieties such as SVPR-2 at Rs 1,710 per quintal, LRA Rs 1,835 and MCU-5 cotton Rs 2,150.

But a section of the farmers in the area felt the MSP was too low to attract more farmers in view of the high labour cost prevailing in the region.

More Stories on : Contract Farming | Cotton | Tamil Nadu

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Cotton Corporation keen on contract farming in Annur

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