Author
RAJASHREE KHATUA
Agro Climate Research Centre
Directorate of Crop Management
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University
Coimbatore – 641 003
[greenalert_blog_Ad]
Tamil Nadu Scenario on Cotton Cultivation
Cotton is an important commercial crop of India. The city of Coimbatore is known as the Manchester of South India. Of the two thousand five hundred textile Mills in India, eight hundred textile mills exist in Tamil Nadu of which 300 are in Coimbatore District itself. The Spindle capacity of this organized sector is about 12.6 million.
Apart from this, there are more than 700 small scale sector units which contribute not less than 2.0 million spindles. These sectors on an average consume around 7 million bales of cotton. The long and extra long staple cotton requirement of these mills is around 0.8 million bales per annum.
Tamil Nadu traditionally grows cotton in an area of about 0.2m hectares and produces about 0.6 million bales of cotton and because of its climate and soil, the State is ideally suited for producing long and extra long staple cottons (Long staple cotton cultivation in India, 2016).
[greenalert_blog_Ad]
Cost and Returns of Cotton Cultivation
In the present study, while examining the cost and returns of the cotton cultivation, it is found that Bt cotton growers are getting more net income (₹.11,933.15) than that of Non-Bt cotton growers (₹.6,042.78) and over all cotton growers are getting as ₹.7,777.54.
Hence, it is suggested that Government of the Tamil Nadu should take necessary steps to reduce inputs cost or giving inputs to cotton growers at subsidized rate through Co-operative society. Cotton cultivation requires huge investments and more maintenance cost (Mayilsami and Selvaraj, 2019).
[greenalert_blog_Ad]
Post Bt Cotton Scenario
They studied the cotton crop status in Tamil Nadu, they found that the post Bt Cotton period there was a increase in production and productivity and also registered high growth rate. This may be due to introduction of Bt cotton.
Cotton production and productivity instability was high in Post Bt Cotton Period because of the adoption of Bt Cotton and non Bt Cotton by the farmers. The Cost of production is escalating due to the rise in the prices of inputs. The cost of Bt seed is high when compared to normal and also the nutrient requirement is also high.
The prices of cotton are fluctuating from place to place and year to year making the production risky. This may be reasons for the cotton area reduction in Tamil Nadu. Considering these facts policies should be made to reduce the risk in cotton production and to make it profitable.
Programs and policies such as rehabilitation of irrigation systems, adoption of improved technologies, strengthening of extension, reducing risks in cotton production can play a vital role in achieving stability and to sustain the high growth rate experienced during the past few years (Panchali et al., 2017).
[greenalert_blog_Ad]
Growth of Cotton Cultivation
In this study made an attempt to analysis the Growth of Cotton Cultivation in Tamil Nadu. They found that the Co-efficient of Variation show that the production of the cotton has maximum variability of the 16.79 %. Whereas, it is 13.69% for productivity and 12.39% of the area.
The productions of the cotton in Tamil Nadu 0.50 per cent are declining. Hence, it is suggested that the government of the Tamil Nadu should initiate the provision of the cotton seeds, fertilizers and pesticides at a subsidised rate through Cooperations societies.
If government has consider this suggestion seriously, it is hope that more number of the cotton growers will come forward to cultivate the cotton in more area and this will increase the cotton economy of the nation (Mayilsami and Selvaraj, 2016).
[greenalert_blog_Ad]
Effect of Inputs
Increased the application of nitrogen increased yield but increased usage of potash had diminishing effects, while the applying of more labour and insecticides increased yield.
It is suggested that there should be intensified effort on the sensitization of farmers about the detrimental effects of using inputs in excess (Zelda A. Elum and C. Sekarthe, 2016).
[greenalert_blog_Ad]