Cottonseed companies are gearing up for high demand for seeds as they expect renewed interest from farmers following record prices for the fibre crop this season to September.
The seed industry has forecast a growth of 10-15 per cent in cotton acreage during the upcoming kharif season. Though higher rainfall and floods damaged the crop in many States last year, the overall productivity this season has been good.
Deficit in area
This season, the area under cotton declined by 7.73 lakh hectares (lh) to 120 lh against the previous season’s acreage of 127.87 lh.
The National Seed Industry of India (The National Seed Industry of India (NSAI) has pegged the requirement of cottonseed at 4.50-4.75 crore packets (of 450 gm each) against last year’s 4.40-4.50 crore packets. “This could vary depending on the rain condition and erratic weather, which could impact the sowing. Sometimes, farmers will have to go for resowing,” M Prabhakara Rao, President of NSAI, told BusinessLine. He said the area would increase due to a record price for the natural fibre. The availability for some hybridseeds may be lower than the demand. “But the overall supply may be just about adequate if there is no requirement for the seed due to erratic rains,” he said.
“There was dip in area in 2021 by about 17 per cent compared with the area in the previous year. It may recover by at least by 12 to 15 per cent,” M Ramasami, Chairman of Rasi Seeds (Private) Limited, said.
Unauthorised seeds
The seed industry, which is facing a serious challenge from players that are selling unauthorised herbicide-tolerant cottonseeds, feels that the problem could continue to pose problems.
Asked whether the Bt-3 seeds will continue to pose problems, Ramasami said it would create some trouble. “The only possible solution is that the government should come forward to approve and see that the research-based companies are allowed to sell,” he said.
A top executive of a cottonseed company said the HTBt seed made up about 18-20 per cent of the total area under cotton this season. Farmers unions, however, contend that the area under illegal cotton could well be over 30 per cent. “Lower incidence of Pink Bollworm resulted in good quality cotton. This has led to very high commodity prices. They went up by more than 1.5 times the minimum support price,” he said.