North India's cotton crop to increase by 45% for 2023-24 season

Satish Sharma, a trader from Bathinda (Punjab), told Fibre2Fashion, “Cotton crop is progressing well. Rains in the first half of the current Monsoon season were very fruitful for the crop. It will be ready for the first picking at the beginning of next month.” Trade sources said that north India’s cotton crop had to face a pest attack in the last two consecutive seasons of 2021-22 and 2022-23. Heavy rains in the previous years badly affected the cotton crop. 

This year, the weather remained favourable from the beginning. The region experienced good rains when the crop required irrigation, so farmers did not have to bear the cost of maintaining ideal moisture. Fewer rains in August also benefitted the crop and provided the perfect weather conditions for developing cotton balls. 

Traders said that normally, cotton crops arrive in the first week of September and the arrival increases to full swing in the second half of September. But the crop is expected to reach in the last week of this month. The arrival will begin in full swing in the first week of September. 

According to the latest sowing report of India’s ministry of agriculture, the total sowing area of cotton increased 4.95 per cent to 16.232 lakh hectares against the acreage of 15.466 lakh hectares during the last season. The sowing area increased around 20 per cent to 7.882 lakh hectares in Rajasthan. Haryana’s acreage also slightly increased to 6.650 lakh hectares against 6.505 lakh hectares of the last season. But Punjab’s farmers avoided cotton due to last season’s losses. Therefore, the cotton area fell to just 1.70 lakh hectares from 2.49 lakh hectares of last season. 

Traders expect cotton production of 60 lakh bales in the region, which will be a very good crop due to favourable weather conditions. According to July 2023 reports of the Cotton Association of India (CAI), north India’s production reduced to 41 lakh bales in the current season 2022-23. The crop was estimated at 50.27 lakh bales in 2021-22. If new season crop estimates remain unchanged, production will increase more than 45 per cent in 2023-24 over the crop of the current season. 

ALCHEMPro News Desk (KUL)