High prices received last year is prompting farmers to plant more cotton this time. But a shortage of seeds relative to demand – particularly of established hybrid brands – could play spoiler to their plans.

Mr Nalla Shyam Sunder Reddy, a 15-acre farmer from Nachenapalli in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh, says he bought eight packets of MRC-7201 (‘Neeraja’) and MRC-7347 (‘Dr. Brent’) – two popular Bollgard-II Bt cotton hybrids of the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) – for Rs 1,450 each on May 28.

This was way above the maximum retail price (MRP) of Rs 930 fixed by the State Government for hybrids incorporating Monsanto’s Bollgard-II proprietary Bt gene construct.

“I was lucky to pay Rs 1,450. The going rate today is Rs 1,800-2,000 a packet (containing 450 grams of Bt and 120 grams of non-Bt cotton seeds). There is black-marketing at the dealers’ end happening across Warangal, Karimnagar and Khammam”, Mr Reddy told Business Line over phone.

Last year, Mr Reddy sold 40 quintals of kapas (un-ginned cotton) at Rs 4,000 and 35 quintals at Rs 6,300 each from his five acres sown to the crop. That translated into over Rs 76,000 of revenue/acre on an average yield of 15 quintals. After deducting Rs 20,000 expenses – including Rs 6,000 on picking, Rs 2,500 each on weeding and fertilisers, and Rs 2,000 on pesticides (against aphids) – he netted a return of Rs 56,000 an acre.

Economics still favourable

Mr Reddy knows his costs will go up this time, not the least because of having to pay more for fertilisers, labour and seeds. Moreover, kapas prices are unlikely to touch the heady levels of last year. But that is not deterring him from planting five acres under Bt cotton this time again.

The same goes for Mr Nandkishore Raut, who plans a repeat of allocating four out of his 7.5-acres to cotton and the balance to soyabean. “Kapas is now fetching Rs 3,000-3,500 a quintal, whereas last time it went as high as Rs 7,000 and I myself sold at Rs 4,000-plus. But even at these rates, it is more profitable to grow cotton”, notes this farmer from Bhambraja in Yavatmal, Maharashtra.

The enthusiasm to cultivate cotton is borne out in official statistics, with the Agriculture Ministry estimating total area sown so far at 20.14 lakh hectares (lh), compared with 14.41 lh covered at this time last year. Acreages are up in Punjab (from 4.83 to 5.75 lh), Haryana (4.5 to 5.45 lh) and Rajasthan (1.55 to 2.84 lh).

In most other States, plantings have just commenced and will peak during mid-June to mid-July, while in Tamil Nadu, it extends from September to early-October.

Demand vs. Supply

Last year, an estimated 230 lakh acres (93 lh) were sown under various Bt cotton hybrids. Taking 1.5-1.6 packets for every acre, it would have meant sales of roughly 360 lakh packets – which included 80-odd lakh by Nuziveedu Seeds, 42 lakh by Rasi Seeds, 41 lakh by Mahyco, 30 lakh by Vibha Seeds, 26 lakh by Tulasi Seeds and 25 lakh by Ankur Seeds.

This year, the demand is placed anywhere between 400 to 425 lakh packets, whereas seed companies are said to have produced some 320 lakh packets in 2010. This, along with carryover stocks of 60 lakh lakh packets, would take the total availability to only 380 lakh packets.

“There could be some overall shortage, though I think it would be felt more in terms of farmers not getting their preferred brands or hybrids. A desperate few may even opt for planting F-2 (second-generation) seeds that have less vigour compared with the original F-1 hybrids”, points out Dr K.R. Kranthi, Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research at Nagpur.

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