The Hindu Business Line : India may soon turn No. 1 organic cotton producer

Going natural
Demand for organic cotton currently is consumer-driven.
The latest report says India accounts for 31.71 per cent of global clean cotton production against Turkey's 32.76 per cent.

Coimbatore , Nov.14

India is expected to overtake Turkey, the current global leader in production of organic cotton during 2006-07 cotton season. India (along with Pakistan in South Asia) and Turkey (along with Israel from West Asia) have locked horns for the top position even during the 2005-06 growing season. Their respective harvested organic cotton volumes are 10,834 tonnes and 10,760 tonnes. These volumes workout to 34.93 per cent and 34.69 per cent respectively in the total global organic cotton production of 31,016 tonnes or 1,42,159 bales reported during 2005-06 season.

Organic Cotton

As per the latest organic cotton fibre report (for spring 2006) from Organic Exchange, the California based non-profit organisation, which is into promoting organic cotton acreage and consumption globally, India has accounted for production of 9,835 tonnes of organic cotton or 31.71 per cent in the world clean cotton production compared with Turkey's 10,160 tonnes or 32.76 per cent of world production during 2005-06 season.

India's organic cotton production in 2004-05 season was 6,320 tonnes (25 per cent), well below the Turkey's output of 10,460 tonnes (41.19 per cent). China and the US were way behind these two for the third and fourth largest supplier of organic cotton with their output at 1,868 tonnes and 1,336 tonnes respectively in 2005-06.

Consumer-Driven

"India presently being the second largest producer of organic cotton is expected to emerge as the world's number one producer of organic cotton in the next cropping season whose data will be available by June 2007," said Mr Simon Ferrigno, Farm Development Director of the Organic Exchange.

Mr Ferrigno, who is currently on an official visit to the newly-promoted organic cotton farming by the Coimbatore-based Super Spinning Mills Ltd, a member of the Sara Elgi group, told Business Line that unlike the first streak of organic cotton drive in the eighties, which lost its steam by 1990s, the phase two acceleration for organic cotton currently raging across nations was consumer-driven, which has propelled big and medium sized brands and retailers to enter into organic cotton based garment manufacture.

Garment Outsourcing

In India, too, the textile trade is becoming conscious on issues such as the pesticides poisoning, environmental declarations among global supply chains and farmer suicides. Another strong factor that has pushed global brands and retailers into organic cotton garment marketing, according to Mr Ferrigno, is their fear of China becoming too expensive for garment outsourcing in the next five or ten years than anywhere else.

To escape the stagflation in textile trade, the trade is thinking of foraying into something new that would give higher value to their products. (Organic Exchange through its global facilitation programmes for organic cotton also works through the brands, retailers, textile processors to support the growers of clean cotton by providing market linkages).

Contract Cultivation

Super Spinning Mills, already a major player in processing the organic cotton for its product manufacture and export merchandise, has also emerged as the first major textile enterprise in the South to take up direct farming of organic cotton through contract cultivation.

The company, which has been certified by the Netherlands-based Skall International (now Control Union World group) for its natural fibre processing standards as well as its field (organic cotton farming) development project, has 2,000 acres in Orissa and 350 acres in Tamil Nadu's Salem/Villupuram districts under organic cotton. Certification of standards of practices is mandatory for dealing with organic cotton production/processing.