Cotton area in Gujarat is behind last year
25-Jul-2024 03:00 PM
Ahmedabad. This time, farmers' enthusiasm and interest in cotton cultivation is seen to be less in Gujarat, the country's most important producer state.
Although cotton still remains the biggest crop of Gujarat in terms of sowing area, its production area has come down from 26.24 lakh hectares last year to 22.34 lakh hectares till 22 July this time, which is 89.54 percent of the normal average area of 24.95 lakh hectares of the last three years.
Cotton sowing is still going on in some areas. In Gujarat, the maximum cultivation of cotton and groundnut is done in 11 districts of Saurashtra division, but this time there has been a big decline in the sowing area of cotton.
In Saurashtra division, the production area of cotton has decreased considerably in Amreli and Rajkot districts. Its area has decreased from 3.65 lakh hectares to 2.98 lakh hectares in Amreli district and from 2.44 lakh hectares to 1.81 lakh hectares in Rajkot district.
Similar situation is being seen in five-six districts of North Gujarat. There, the area under cotton cultivation has decreased from 2.35 lakh hectares last year to 1.81 lakh hectares this time.
District Agriculture Officer of Amreli says that during the last three years, due to excessive sowing of non-certified seeds by farmers, the cotton crop was infested with pink bollworm pest, cotton cultivation was done through single crop method and monsoon rains were late and less,
which affected the average yield rate. As a result, in the current Kharif season, many farmers either stopped cultivating cotton or reduced its area.
For the last two years, the market price of cotton has also been hovering around Rs 7000 per quintal which is much below the expectations of farmers (Rs 10,000 per quintal).
The cotton crop is ready in six months whereas the groundnut crop takes only 100-120 days to be ready for harvesting.
The Central Government has increased the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of cotton from Rs 6620 per quintal to Rs 7121 per quintal for the medium staple variety and from Rs 7020 per quintal to Rs 7521 per quintal for the long staple category. There has been a sharp decline in the area under cotton cultivation in the northern states as well.