The Hindu Business Line : Cotton quality: Work on for acceptable certifying process

STANDARDISATION of instrument testing of cotton would be key to defining quality parameters of the natural fibre and once this is achieved, the issues such as quality disputes could be lessened, according to officials from the International Cotton Association (ICA), formerly Liverpool Cotton Association.

Two ICA officials, Mr Fritz Alexander Grobien, President of the ICA, and Mr Andrew Macdonald, its ex-president who were here to interact with the cotton trade and members of the local cotton textile industry, said an expert committee of the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), another cotton trade facilitation body, has taken up the task of bringing in a globally acceptable instrument quality evaluation process for cotton.

Set to have a five-year time frame to fully achieve standardising the instrument quality evaluation practices to cover all cotton producing countries, Mr Macdonald, who is also heading the ICAC's sub-committee for the mission, said the exercise would lead to the ICAC certifying centers in Asia, South America and China.

ICAC would be assisted in this task by globally renowned testing laboratories such as the Bremen fibre institute and the USDA laboratory. "India is a member of this task force and we want to have a centre for certification in the region as we want the country to be involved in the instrument testing standardisation for cotton," Mr Macdonald said.

Already two years of work gone into standardising the instrument quality evaluation, the ICAC's task in the second stage is aimed at achieving minimum variances in the testing between two laboratories of different time zones and within the same lot of cotton consignments shipped.

Standardisation of instrument testing of cotton would be an answer to ensuring genuine returns for the cotton growers and spinners whose production processes have become more complex needing to avoid contamination.

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