Citing high input costs and drop in productivity of BT cotton due to Tobacco Streak Virus, cotton farmers have sought requisite subsidy from the government to weather the impact of the removal of 11% import duty on cotton by the Central Government. The move, announced by the Union Government till September, is to accord a thrust to the textile sector.
Farmers, for their part, fear that the procurement price in Tamil Nadu will witness a free fall from the existing extent of ₹ 6,500 per quintal.
Though the Central Government has fixed the Minimum Support Price at ₹ 7,710, the procurement price in Tamil Nadu has been less due to absence of centralised procurement.
Unlike in other States where procurement is carried out by the Cotton Corporation of India, farmers in Tamil Nadu have been put to a disadvantage due to the reluctance of the State Government to foot the bill for transport of cotton from the regulated sales outlets to the milling plants, according to the cultivators.
“Farmers are apprehensive that the selling price of cotton in Tamil Nadu could fall by up to ₹2,000 per quintal. The onus is on the Central Government to save the cotton farmers through providing the requisite subsidy to stave off losses,” Founder of Tamizhaga Vivasayigal Padhukappu Sangam, Easan Murugasamy said.
While the farmers are not against providing a fillip to the industrial sector, the Central and State governments should, all the same, safeguard interests of farmers, Mr. Murugasamy emphasised.
According to TNAU scientists working with cotton farmers, the acreage is already shrinking due to low returns.
In West Tamil Nadu, cotton production acreage is the highest in Salem at close to 9000 hectares, followed by Dharmapuri (nearly 4,000 ha), Namakkal (less than 1,900 ha), and Krishnagiri (less than 1,400 ha). The crop is grown on less than 1,000 hectares in Tiruppur district and is raised in a meagre extent of a little over 350 ha in Coimbatore district.
The picking cost alone is ₹20 per kg. Cotton crop, in general, in Tamil Nadu, is 70% rainfed, and farmers have chosen to go for alternative crops, a TNAU scientist said, indicating that the scope is very limited for cotton cultivation acreage to improve, given the evolving scenario.
