A Journey of Cotton Growing in India

(Paper presented at a National seminar on Human Security in India: Issues,

Challenges and Response on November 25-26, 2016, Department of Politics, SIES

College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Sion, Mumbai (affiliated to the University of

Mumbai)).

Abstract

Fourteen years after Bt cotton was approved in 2002 for cultivation in India while the

area and production has increased, productivity has stagnated and newer pests

have appeared requiring large amounts of pesticides. Yields of cotton started going

up when the Bt cotton coverage was not much between 2002 to 2004 and started

plateauing after the Bt cotton area crossed 90 per cent. While pesticide use on the

American bollworm has reduced, other pests have surfaced and among them the

mealy bug for the first time. As a result, the advantage of lesser sprays to kill mainly

the American bollworm on cotton has been somewhat negated by large amounts of

insecticides to tackle aphids, mirids, mealy bugs and other sap sucking pests. When

Bt cotton seeds were approved for distribution in six states in India, there was much

expectation from the scientific community and the government which overrode strong

criticism from many quarters including scientists and farmers’ groups. The fact that

countries like the USA and China were growing transgenic cotton, was successfully

used to staunch all criticism in the name of scientific advance. While Bt cotton

almost covers the entire cotton area, India is the largest producer of organic cotton

and has another advantage of desi cotton varieties. With desi Bt cotton in the offing

farmers may be able to cut down costs of cultivation. However, the loss of our

biodiversity is tragic and it is no longer easy to get desi cotton seeds. The dramatic
and nearly irreversible changes in cotton cultivation have brought immense tragedy

for some farmers and neither were hybrids nor Bt cotton a solution to the problems

the farmer faced.

Meena Menon

[email protected]

Cotton in India

Cotton grew over the years in India, as a short staple and produced cloth that was

both coarse and fine. The desi cottons – Gossypium herbaceum and Gossypium

arboreum or tree cotton, were suited to hand spinning and weaving and grew with

little fuss in the Indian sub-continent. Few remember cotton is a dryland crop and

that is how it grew in many rainfed parts of the country and evolved its own

characteristics unique to each place. The paper gives a historical context and

background for the current crisis in growing cotton, the farm suicides and the

handloom sector which is in doldrums.

The Industrial Revolution changed the cotton production and manufacturing scene in

India with machines mostly suited to longer stapled cotton. From a leading grower of

cotton and producer of cloth India turned into a backyard for raw cotton for British

mills. The East India Company didn‘t want to solely depend on America for cotton,

and urged the Indian government to take steps to grow the longer stapled cottons.
The various experiments to grow American cotton failed in most places and

American planters who came to teach Indian farmers to grow cotton learnt a thing or

two.

The British obsession with longer staple length was to suit the machines. England

was not a cotton growing country and had no familiarity with staple lengths. As a

result Arkwright‘s invention catered to long stapled cotton. ―Arkwright, the inventor of

the first spinning machine, however knew only of long-stapled hirsutum of America. It

is from this device that all modern spinning machinery is derived. "Quality" in cotton

fibre has thereby become dictated by the limitations of the spinning machine. As

modern machines work at higher and higher speeds they need longer and stronger

fibres, but the action of the machine itself weakens the cotton. All these qualities are

sacrificed to the needs of a particular design of the spinning machine.‖ 1

The Industrial Revolution also marked the beginning of the end of India‘s biodiversity

in short- stapled cotton and the diminishing of the homespun industry. There was an

increasing demand for longer stapled American cottons and the machines sought to

mass produce cloth from cotton of a certain fibre length, introducing a dull uniformity

into the process. Already the world has lost so many varieties of cotton, for instance,

the cotton that went into the making of Dacca muslin on the banks of the river

Meghna, a silky staple, locally known as phooti cotton, is no longer grown.

At the time of Independence, desi cotton grew on 97 per cent of the cotton area in

India but the seeds for future research were in place. There were 193 cotton mills in

1
Prasad C Shambu, ‗Suicide Deaths and Quality of Indian Cotton (Perspectives
from History of Technology and Khadi Movement)‘, Economic and Political Weekly,
January 30, 1999
 India by 1900 and after the British left the number had risen to 425 by 1950 and 465

by 1956.2 Long staple cotton was only 3 to 4 per cent at the time of Independence

and the mills were demanding longer staple length. It was a repeat of what

happened with the British – only this time there was a difference, it was the Indian

research establishment which was promoting longer staples.

India is the only country in the world to have almost its entire cotton area grown with

hybrid and Bt cotton. Even in China and Pakistan there are only straight varieties.

The area under Desi cotton was 97% in 1947; 42% in 1990; 28% in 2000 and is

estimated to be less than 3% in 2011.

The area under cotton has rapidly expanded in India. In 1950-51 cotton was grown

over an area of 5.58 million hectares with 3 million bales being produced and a yield

of 88 kg/ha in the country. At that time irrigation was 8.2 per cent of the area. The

area increased from 7.34 million ha in 1988-89 to 9.04 million ha in 1995-96 when

production topped 12 million bales. India harvested a record production of 6.64

million tonnes (39.8 million bales) in 2013-14 from an area of 11.7 million hectares

with a productivity of 568 kg/ha, leaving behind the best historical record of 16.5

million bales before twelve years. 3

Cotton had evolved into a major cash crop from a subsistence crop thanks to the

British and remains so even today. ―Cotton contributes to 35.0% of the global

fabric needs and 60.0% of clothing in India. It is estimated that in India more than

2
The Indian Cotton Mill Industry, its importance to the nation, The Millowners
Association , Bombay 1956
3
CICR Vision document 2050, CICR Nagpur 2015
 10.0 million farmers cultivate cotton on 12.7 million ha and about 30 million persons

are employed in cotton value addition.‖ 4

In 2003 when I conducted a research on organic cotton cultivation in some states of

India5, I came across many farmers who were growing cotton without chemicals.

Ironically the first organic cotton venture was in Vidarbha – the Vidarbha Organic

Farmers‘ Association or VOFA, a region now notorious for farm suicides. The over

300,000 farm suicides since 1995, much of it in the cotton growing areas of

Telangana and Vidarbha in Maharashtra, form the tip of the agrarian crisis in the

country and the cash crop economy has not always benefitted farmers.

Over two decades ago, large farmers, fed up with stagnating yields, turned to

growing hybrid and desi cotton or straight varieties with homemade fertilisers and

sprays. The movement was catching on and there were profits from exporting the

organically grown and certified cotton. Over 1200 hectares was soon under organic

farming, making it, at that time, the largest area in the world under such cultivation in

Vidarbha. VOFA distributed incentive wages to its members since 1995-96 and an

annual bonus. When it was active it had 205 members, 90 of whom were organic

farmers. In 2002, 70 farmers were growing organic cotton. About 1500-2000

quintals of cotton was sold every year.

There were organic cotton efforts in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra and

in Dharwar, Karnataka scientists were experimenting with growing coloured cotton

which was later woven in an old khadi unit for export.

4
CICR Vision document 2050, CICR Nagpur 2015
5
Menon, Meena, Organic Cotton Reinventing the Wheel , Kalpavriksh and Deccan
Development Society, 2004
The introduction of Bt cotton in 2002 changed all that. VOFA is defunct and its

leading cotton farmers have stopped growing cotton altogether. While there are

many other organic cotton ventures and India is the largest producer of organic

cotton, there is a debate on whether Bt cotton fits into the organic regime. Indian

standards do not permit that but some organisations do make exceptions.

In a scenario of bollworm resistance, suicides and low yields, farmers were almost

giving up on growing cotton before 2002. The overuse of synthetic pyrethroids

transformed the American bollworm into an insecticide resistance monster as Dr K R

Kranthi, director of CICR describes it. The green or American bollworm is not a pest

on desi cotton and there is no mention of it in early records. Before Bt cotton was

introduced, about 54% of the total pesticides used in Indian agriculture were

consumed on cotton alone, though it accounts for only 5% of the total cultivated area
6
. Most of the insecticides recommended for cotton pest management were for the

American bollworm 7. Cotton suffers attacks from over 80 insect pests of which more

than 10 are sucking pests.

The direction of research

6
Puri, S N, K S Murthy and O P Sharma, ‘IPM for sustainable cotton production’,
P 233
Management’ in Sundaram V et al., Handbook of Cotton in India, ISCI, Bombay 1999

7
Mayee, C D, M K Rao and Mahendra Singh Yadav, Cotton: March Towards New
P 31,
Millennium, Central Institute for Cotton research (CICR), June 2001, Nagpur
Indian scientists took to American long staples and their improvement and research

in a big way, releasing the world‘s first cotton hybrid H 4 in 1970. Nearly 70 years

after Independence, in a complete reversal, India‘s cotton area is covered with Bt

cotton hybrids upto 96 per cent and desi cotton occupies little space.

Research and development relied on foreign varieties for advancement and in the

case of cotton, much attention was paid to developing hybrids, and while some were

based on desi cottons, there were popular straight varieties as well. With a rich

treasure of desi cotton, Indian scientists instead chose to focus on American

varieties for longer staples aimed at textile production. Now the wheel has come full

circle. Scientists acknowledge that desi varieties maybe a good option in times of

climate change with their adaptability to less water or heat. Less than five per cent

of Indian scientists research desi cotton.

Even before Independence the focus was trained on longer staples. ‗The most

significant development for the future success and spread of American cotton in

India was the introduction of a cotton variety originally found suitable in Indo- China

into the Madras presidency in 1904-5 called Cambodia. It proved very successful

under irrigated conditions and the cultivars selected from Cambodia have formed the

basis for several new varieties and hybrid cotton which were extensively cultivated in

later years...‘ 8

8
P 9, Handbook of Cotton in India, ISCI Bombay 1999
‗Ramanatha Ayyar released an even better variety, Co 2, in Cambodia cottons in

1929 (ibid).‘ In 1937, the same Ramanatha Ayyar put forth the view that cotton

breeding and varietal improvement should be concentrated on American hirsutum

type cottons for increasing yield and fibre qualities of Indian cotton crop.

The two revolutions and cotton

The two hybrid revolutions – the Green and Gene- changed the composition of

India‘s cotton variety landscape. The Green Revolution spawned the growth of high

yielding varieties but it was only during the ‗gene revolution‘ after 2006 that the

hybrid area crossed over 90 per cent. The area under Bt cotton increased from 6.3

million ha in 2007-08 to over 11.6 million ha during 2014-15(CICR Vision 2050,

2015). The quality profile of Indian cotton changed significantly. In 2000 long staple

cotton production was only 20% of the total cotton, but the proportion increased to

more than 88% of the total cotton produced by 2014 because of the Bt cotton

hybrids, most of which are the long staple category (CICR, Vision 2050, 2015).

9
The scientific establishment was fully aware of the pests on the American varieties.

But that didn‘t steer them away from research on hybrids using these very varieties.

These hybrids have made way for transgenic ones and ―today there are nearly 2000

Bt cotton hybrids flooding the market and most of them are susceptible to the leaf

9
American cotton varieties G. hirsutum and Sea Island cotton, G. barbadense, from
which Suvin was developed, are more susceptible to insect pests such as jassids,
whiteflies, American bollworm and diseases such as bacterial blight, Verticillium wilt,
parawilt and leaf curl virus (CICR Vision document 2011).
curl virus which is causing huge problems in North India. Desi cottons are immune to

this disease‖ ( Dr K R Kranthi 2015, personal communication).

With hybrids, cotton cultivation underwent a revolution. From leaving cotton to grow

at will, farmers had to fuss and bother over the plants. They had to apply fertilizers,

spray pesticides and the high yielding varieties (HYV)s or high response varieties

needed fertilizers and lots of water to grow which was difficult since more than 60 per

cent of cotton is grown on rainfed areas.

While scientists worked overtime to create newer varieties and hybrids, extension

services didn‘t quite match up and it is accepted by the government that services are

poor even today. Hybrids were introduced as a panacea to poor yields just as in

2002 Bt cotton was touted as an antidote to the American bollworm. Farmers were

told to use fertilizers which were then heavily subsidized as an incentive but what

was perhaps not understood or explained were the pests on cotton and the need for

judicious use of fertilizers and insecticides.

Cropping patterns changed and they were not always in keeping with region specific

conditions. A bizarre development was taking place in the cotton growing world

where farmers were encouraged to plant cotton which had an array of pests they

were not used to dealing with and they sprayed chemicals with no effect. A

combination of factors resulted in the need for a breakthrough to curb the American

bollworm and that didn‘t come from Indian scientists but a multinational company.

As a result, great hopes were pinned on Bt cotton for a transformation. And

transform it did, though if that was the sole reason is debatable. Several factors have

contributed to the increase in production, (CICR Vision 2050 2015). One major
factor is the increase in cotton area by 66% from 7.8 million hectares (mha) in 2002

to 13 million ha in 2014. In contrast, over the past decade, the cotton area decreased

in all the major cotton growing countries such as USA, China, Australia, Brazil and

Pakistan. There is a controversy over the benefits of Bt cotton, spilling over to Bt

brinjal which has been put on hold for commercial release. The scientific community

has mostly endorsed Bt cotton, but some farmers, their organisations, NGOs and

scientists challenged its perceived success.

The promised solution to the bollworm, Bt cotton, after the initial stages, has led to

other pest outbreaks. Monsanto Mahyco‘s Bt cotton seed Bollgard 1 and 2 have

developed resistance to the pink bollworm. Initially the amount of pesticides had

reduced for the American bollworm but other sucking pests increased. While the

area has increased, yields which went up at first have stagnated. ―As many as 32

countries have a productivity level of more than 520 kg lint per hectare, which is

more than India‘s average yield( 520 kg/ha). At least a dozen countries produce

more than 1050 kg lint per hectare which is double that of India. In 2013, Australia

produced more than 2000 kg lint/ha, China, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey and Israel

produced more than 1500 kg per hectare‖ (CICR Vision 2050, 2015).

The farmer is at the vortex of factors, none of which are in her/his control. People

speak of choices before the farmer-- not to grow cash crops or not grow cotton if that

is causing distress. But does the farmer really have a choice? –of seeds or markets

for instance. Most cotton is rainfed and the farmer has to spend on power (erratic in

places like the Vidarbha region), to water the plants and also dig borewells for
irrigation. For once CICR has accepted the difficulties of growing cotton. ―Over the

past 10 years between 2003 and 2014, the cost of cotton cultivation in India

increased three-fold, whereas the minimum support price only doubled. The cost on

human labour increased four-fold during the decade, seed costs increased four-fold,

fertilizer usage increased 2.5-fold and insecticide usage doubled over the past five

years itself‖(CICR Vision 2050, 2015).

In Vidarbha for instance, cotton is monocropped though in the past there was always

a pulse like tuvar or pigeon pea, green gram (mung) for intercropping. The

dependence of the farmer on the private sector and the government for seeds,

fertilizers, apart from water and electricity has made the community vulnerable. The

farmer needs loans for everything. With institutional credit not easy, he /she has to

rely on moneylenders who even now account for a quarter of the total loans. The

endless cycle of debt due to crop losses and lack of credit, has fatal consequences.

The periodic loan waivers, lower rates of interest and changes in rural credit policy

don‘t seem to be turning the tide. The farmer no longer has control over seeds and

cannot reuse the new hybrid varieties. Desi cotton or any other hybrid seeds are

difficult to obtain in the market which has no room for even the once popular

improved varieties developed in India. The crisis in cotton is also linked to the global

market and heavy subsidies in countries like the USA which has only about 25,000

cotton farmers.

Solutions to pests and better yields have come piecemeal and if one pest has been

tackled there are several others that have manifested themselves. Traditional

knowledge about farming and seeds has been lost and this has given way to what is

pushed in the market. . Reusing seeds year after year, saving them, growing newer

strains of crops by selection and improvement which farmers used to do years ago
has all but disappeared. Now every year, the farmer has to invest in seeds, often

borrowing to pay for them on high interest, adding to the capital expense and in the

case of cotton it can be a large amount.

Though there is a definite increase in area, while the Bt technology has been

effective in controlling bollworms, it is difficult to see a causal relationship between Bt

cotton and yields. Productivity has not gone up significantly. Lint productivity in 2014

was 484 kg/ha when the area under Bt-cotton was saturated at more than 90% as

compared to 474 kg/ha in 2004 when Bt cotton area was just 5.0% (Dr Kranthi,

personal communication, 2015). And if the secondary pests and resistance are

taken into account, we seem to be looking for a way out once again to grow cotton

sustainably.

Bt cotton was meant to be grown in irrigated areas which is ironic, given that 60 per

cent of cotton is grown on rainfed soils. There is no doubt that costs of cultivation

have risen after Bt cotton, since the seeds itself are so expensive. The costs offset

the need for insecticides on Bt cotton, as research is quick to point out but that has

been belied by both Monsanto Mahyco‘s Bollgard 1 and 2 developing resistance to

the pink bollworm which has wrecked cotton in Gujarat and some others states in

2014/15 and earlier too. Besides new pests have come up for the first time on

cotton– the mealy bug for instance and whiteflies have increased apart from mirids.

Suicides increased in the 1990s and some argue that Bt cotton was planted only

after 2002, so how can it be blamed for farm suicides? Bt cotton exacerbated a

fragile situation. Introducing an expensive seed like Bt cotton into a situation which is
fraught with uncertainties of price, credit, rainfall and inputs, has not resolved the

crisis. Unfortunately, the debate on farm suicides has been hijacked by a pro and

anti- Bt cotton narrative, obfuscating the real issues. Going beyond this untenable

position, Bt cotton after the initial promise of higher yields and expanding area, has

not resolved the farmers‘ problems of pests, yield (which it was not meant to) or

reduced the cost of production.

Studies on the efficacy of Bt cotton point to higher gains and tend to gloss over the

exorbitant price of seeds or the attacks by secondary pests. The introduction of

hybrids in India, already made sure that some traditional forms of farming would

cease to exist, in the sense of seed reuse, saving or selection and multiplication.

Farmers would be slave to seed companies for hybrid seeds every year, adding to

their expenses. It is not for nothing that now seed companies have woken up to the

need for straight varieties which are more adapted to dryland conditions and

resistant to pests. The numerous studies on Bt cotton and its impact have found

higher yields, lesser number of sprays and improvement in economic conditions.

These studies also make out as if the farmer was exposed to a wide array of choices

and then decided to go in for Bt cotton on merit which is not the case, just as it was

not in the case of hybrids. There is evidence that other seeds were not produced by

companies or the public sector and there was in fact no real choice. No doubt the

farmers were keen on a new technology that would tackle the bollworm and they did

take to it in a big way, using illegal seeds, even before the official release of Bt

cotton.
Technology must be suitable to the people. Farmers did not have a choice of

hybrids- they went in for the new seeds not knowing the full implications and were

left battling the menace of pests notably the green bollworm which in the first place,

was not a menace. It is also a fact that farmers do want new and improved sends but

the full consequences of growing them, what it entails, the kind of inputs the new

seeds need, must be explained to them. Why is rainfed India growing a water-

intensive crop like cotton hybrids? Starting with the British who insisted on longer

stapled cotton for their industries, Indian scientists too took it a step further with their

focus on hybrids. If anything, it is the entire approach to crop research and

development and agriculture that must be questioned. Reusing seeds and selecting

new and improved varieties make the farmer less dependent on external factors.

There are more voices being heard for straight varieties of cotton. No doubt attention

must be paid to increasing yield, better prices and growing cotton sustainably.

Area of Bt cotton

The area under Bt cotton is almost 96 per cent of the country now, and India has

become a net exporter of cotton from a net importer (CICR Vision document 2011).10

Transgenic varieties are firmly entrenched in the market to the exclusion of

everything else. Today in Vidarbha and elsewhere it will next to impossible to buy

straight or even hybrid varieties of cotton and there is a huge demand for Bt cotton

seeds. With its high production costs Bt cotton has added to the crisis situation in

Vidarbha and there is evidence on that count. ―Input costs at even constant prices

10
India‘s exports of cotton have increased from a low of 0.8 lakh tonnes in 2004-05 to a
high of 19.9 lakh tonnes in 2012-13 before declining to 18.6 lakh tonnes in 2013-14.
Exports of cotton have further declined to 10.9 lakh tonnes in 2014-15 mainly due to
subdued demand from China which is a major export destination for Indian
cotton.(Kharif Policy 2016-17, CACP)
have doubled in Maharashtra over the period 2003 to 2012 and there is a crisis due

to wrong choice of hybrids—but, cotton prices have been high during 2000-2014

which mitigated the crisis to a great extent. The most tragic situation is in

Maharashtra which has the highest area and expenditure but lowest yields and

lowest net returns at an average of Rs 3.82 for every Rs 100 spent during recent

years. Vidarbha uses long duration hybrids which cannot give high yields due to

moisture stress during boll formation phase. By September the soil loses its moisture

and there is nothing left for bolls that form in October and November. Rain-fed

regions of Vidarbha and Telangana should not grow long duration hybrids. Early

maturing short duration varieties, especially Desi species are best suited for

Vidarbha and Telangana‖ (Dr Kranthi personal communication, 2015). Other

government agencies also point to the dire situation in Maharashtra like the

Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).

New Pests

The Bt cotton success story has another angle to it. ―New sucking pests have

emerged as major pests causing significant economic losses. The mealy bug was

detected as a new species Phenacoccus solenopsis, which was not known to be

found on cotton in India. Because the problem is new to cotton, it appears to have

sent panic signals within the scientific community. There has been a sudden

increase in the use of insecticides on cotton, especially those of the extremely

hazardous category, over the past two years for mealy bug control. Despite

insecticide use, the pest was found to spread rapidly all across India causing

damage in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and parts of Madhya Pradesh and
Maharashtra and is expected to cause more damage if proper precautionary

measures are not initiated.‖11

CICR while pointing to the reduced use of insecticides for the American

bollworm finds the cost rising, probably to control other pests. “Cotton seed

costs increased constantly over the past ten years from Rs 1058/ha in 2002 to

Rs 3594/ha”. ”Despite the introduction of Bt cotton which was expected to

reduce the need for insecticide use, the expenditure on insecticides on cotton

increased constantly over the ten year period from Rs 1385/ha in the year 2002

to Rs 2429 in 2011”(p 7, CICR Vision 2050, 2015).

As a result insecticide use which had declined from 1 to 1.2 kg/ha to 0.5 kg a hectare

has gone up to.9 kg/ha by 2013. Increased infestation of whiteflies in North India and

whiteflies, thripps and leaf hoppers across the country required intensive application

of pesticides in 2013 and 2014. Also the rapid introduction of over a 1000 new

hybrids after 2006 and the increase in area of hybrid cotton from about 45 per cent in

2006 to 95 per cent in 2013 led to more pest attacks from sap sucking pests leading

to 11,598 m tonnes being used in 2013 which is a little higher than 10,988 tonnes

used in 2000 before Bt cotton12.

The use of insecticides for these new pests has also increased and reached levels

slightly above to that in the year before Bt cotton was introduced and over the years

with expanding area under cotton the use of fertilizers has also gone up. Long

duration irrigated cotton attracts more pests and increased use of pesticides.

11
Kranthi K R Bt Cotton Q and A Indian Society for Cotton Improvement (ISCI) 2012
12
Cotton Production systems-Need for a Change in India by Dr K R Kranthi, Cotton Statistics
and News December 16 2014
Fertilizer usage has trebled from 78 kg./ha in 2001 to 278 kg/ha, with the highest

increase in Maharashtra. When it increases three times yields are bound to

increase.13 ―Estimates show that 0.9 to 1.2 million tonnes of fertilizers were used per

year for cotton cultivation during 1999-2000. The usage increased rapidly to 1.8

million tonnes , mainly due to the increase in the acreage of hybrid cotton from 38

per cent in 2000 to 70 per cent in 2007. Fertilizer usage increased to 2.0 to 2.5

million tons by 2013 especially after the rapid spread of hybrid cotton all across

North India by 2013‖(Kranthi 2014).

Yields of cotton

By all accounts yields in cotton have stagnated. The increase in area has not been

matched by higher productivity which continues to be a major concern. ― Bt cotton is

now planted on 94- 95 per cent of the area or more in 2014. India has the largest

cotton area in the world, about 35 per cent or 32 to 33 million ha but it contributes

only 25 per cent of global production at five million tonnes. It is a matter of concern

that productivity continues to be among the lowest in the world at an average of

500kg to 568 kg per hectare over the past five years despite the widespread

adoption of some very advanced technologies such as hybrid cotton and Bollgard II

cotton at more than 90 per cent of the acreage in the country over the past five

years.14

There are some belated realisations on the exclusive focus on hybrids. The per

hectare productivity has reached 522 kg per hectare in 2014(cotcorp.gov.in), though

it is still low by world standards. ‗Even with its best productivity of 566 kg/ha, it is

13
Kranthi personal communication 2015
14
Cotton Production systems-Need for a Change in India by Dr K R Kranthi, Cotton
Statistics and News December 16 2014
ranked 24th in the list of 80 cotton producing countries. Productivity started to

decline from 566 kg/ha in 2007 to 522 kg/ha in 2008, 486 kg/ha in 2009 and 475

kg/ha in 2010.

Most of the Bt hybrids are of 180-to 200-day duration and are not suited for rain-fed
15
conditions. Short duration crops are planted in June and they mature early to be

harvested by November. So the two main pests, the American bollworm which

comes in September and the pink bollworm in December can be avoided. ―You can

have short duration crops and escape bollworm infestation and the need for Bt

cotton can be circumvented‖(Dr Kranthi, personal communication 2015).

While coverage of Bt cotton is almost complete in the country, it is time to review

whether it makes sense for Vidarbha and rainfed areas, to continue growing

transgenic cotton when there is little irrigation. There is enough evidence to show

that Bt cotton is an unsuitable variety for rainfed conditions and as farmers told the

Planning Commission that the seed packets do indicate even in small print that the

crop is more suitable for irrigated conditions. This is where extension and

intervention must come in from the state government instead of which farmers are

making the wrong choice driven by private players.

15
―Before 2002, the area under ―non-Bt‖ hybrid-cotton was less than two per cent in
north India and about 40 per cent in central and south India. By 2011, more than 96
per cent of the cotton area was under hybrid cotton, more specifically the Bt hybrid.
For rain-fed regions, especially with shallow-marginal soils, characterized by low
input use, early maturing straight varieties are the best option. The main advantage
with straight varieties is that farmers can reuse farm-saved seeds and can take the
liberty of early dry sowing, even before the onset of the monsoon, without having to
worry about the risks of poor germination and re-sowing‖(Kranthi 2012).
NOTE- This paper is based on research I did for a book A Frayed History The

Journey of Cotton in India (Meena Menon and Uzramma published by Oxford

University Press, October 2017).

Notes:

Staple lengths of cotton

Superior long-staple >27mm

Long-staple 24.5-26mm

Superior medium-staple 22-24mm

Medium-staple 20-21.5mm

Short-staple <19mm

Note on cotton
The genus gossypium comprises 20 wild and cultivated species. Cultivated cottons

fall under four species. There is evidence to show that cultivated cottons with lint

must have first appeared in the Indus valley. The species G arboreum and G

herbaceum are indigenous to Asia and Africa and are popularly referred to as desi

cotton in India. G arboreum is believed to have originated in the Indian subcontinent.

Some of the desis still grown include Jayadhar in Karnataka, gheti in Bharuch and

Wagad in Gujarat.

The other cultivated cotton species, G hirsutum and G barbadense were initially

introduced into India during the 17th and 18th centuries AD. They are popularly

called American and Egyptian cottons respectively ( p 3 Handbook of Cotton in India,

ISCI Bombay 1999

Sundaram et al ). A perennial cotton variety called Bourbon, a hirsutum, was

introduced into South India in 1970.

India is the only country in the world that grows all four cultivated cotton species.

Some desi cottons are listed below; many of them are not grown any longer, or grow

in small areas. Some have been improved or crossed to yield better varieties.

Name of cotton variety Type Area

Bengal desi G herbaceum Punjab Haryana, North

Rajasthan

Malvi G arboretum Malwa region, MP

Dholleras G herbaceum North Gujarat

Broach G herbaceum Middle and south Gujarat

Khandesh G arboretum Khandesh tract of

Maharashtra

Gaoranis G herbaceum Marathwada,

Maharashtra

Northerns G arboretum Kurnool

Cocanadas (coloured G arboretum Coastal Andhra Pradesh

cotton)

Mungari G arboretum Rayalseema, Andhra

Pradesh

Kumptas (forerunner of G herbaceum Eastern dry tract of

Jayadhar) Karnataka

Westerns G herbaceum Bellary, Raichur,

Karnataka

Tinnies, Karunganni G arboretum South Tamil Nadu

Source: Parmar and Ramchandran 1993

Straight varieties: Seeds which can be planted year after year. Straight varieties

can be grown by the farmers and the seeds replicated year after year, unlike hybrids.

Some varieties have been listed in the table above.

Pure line selections: Pure line selection refers to the homogenous progeny of a self

pollinated homozygous plant. Selection consists of four major steps: selection of

lines by individual plant selection; testing of pure lines in multi-location trials; and

release of best pure line as a variety. Release of a new variety through pure line

selection takes 8-10 years (Sundaram et al 1999).

Hybrids: Hybrids are seeds that have to be produced every year from male and

female parents. Heterosis breeding refers to exploitation of hybrid vigour in the form

of hybrid varieties for genetic improvement of yield. India is the pioneer country in the

world for commercial cultivation of cotton hybrids. Over 40 hybrids have been

released by public sector research centres (Sundaram et al, 1999). Most of the

hybridisation is done by hand, employing young women in rural areas.

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