In its mid-season estimates, the apex cotton trade body, Cotton Association of India (CAI) has revised its cotton crop estimate downward at 341 lakh bales (each of 170 kg) for the year 2016-17 as against the earlier estimate of 346 lakh bales, projected in October.

Announcing its December 2016 estimate of the cotton crop for the 2016-17 season (beginning from October 1, 2016), CAI projected total cotton supply of 404 lakh bales, with domestic consumption at 290 lakh bales, thereby leaving an available surplus of 114 lakh bales.

“The arrivals of cotton during the ongoing 2016-17 crop year are estimated to be lower than those up to the same period last year due to holding back of seed cotton by farmers,” CAI said in a statement here.

Last August, in its first crop estimate for the 2016-17 season, CAI had put the crop size at 336 lakh bales, at the same level as that of the 2015-16 season. However, by the end of September 2016, CAI revised its crop estimate to 345 lakh bales, anticipating a bigger crop in states such as Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

See-saw projections

For the November estimate, the apex trade body revised the crop further upwards to 346 lakh bales, supported by a projected increase in production in Gujarat.

However, the December estimates bring down the output projections for Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the key cotton growing zones.

CAI estimated Gujarat's cotton output at 92.50 lakh bales, about 50,000 bales lower than the previous estimate.

The production estimate for Maharashtra has been revised downward to 86 lakh bales against 87 lakh bales. A sharp decline is estimated for Karnataka from 22 lakh bales earlier to 19 lakh bales in December 2016.

The CAI estimates cotton imports of about 18 lakh bales for the year 2016-17, which is about 4 lakh bales lower than 2015-16.

Related Topics