Gurugram: The Haryana government’s announcement last year incentivising the production of desi cotton has received sharp criticism from agricultural scientists with a retired principal scientist of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Wednesday writing to the Governor describing the move as “unrealistic” and “not in the interest of farmers”.
In his letter emailed to the Haryana Governor, with copies marked to the chief secretary and the state agriculture department, former ICAR scientist Dr Virender Lather said that an advertisement, stating “Desi Kapas Ugayen, Protsahan Payen” (Grow Desi Cotton, Get Incentives), published in all leading dailies Tuesday was an “unrealistic” decision keeping in mind both farmers as well as textile industries. ThePrint has accessed the letter.
“The timing of the advertisement is wrong because the sowing of desi cotton in the state is done in the month of April. The crop needs temperatures of less than 40 degrees Celsius for the sprouting of the seeds. So, announcing this incentive in the month of August is an unfeasible move which won’t help the cause of farmers,” wrote Dr Lather.
He pointed out that the textile industry required American cotton with soft fibre and good staple length, and desi cotton, with its rough fibre and lesser staple length, doesn’t serve its purpose. Hence, the decision is unrealistic from a marketing angle, too, he added in his letter.
Speaking to ThePrint, Dr Lather said that the move seems to have emerged from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) “obsession with anything desi or organic”, without taking into consideration its practicality.
“The government has shown an obsession with anything desi or organic or unscientific technologies in agriculture in the last decade or so. Some of these include zero budget natural farming, desi cotton, nano urea, etc, which can risk the food security of India in the near future with overall reduced agricultural production,” said Lather.
Ram Partap Sihag, Joint Director (Cotton) in Haryana’s Agriculture Department, however, said that though the advertisement published Tuesday mentions the incentive for growing Desi cotton, it was more about the incentives being provided for the purchase of pesticides and nutrients for cotton crops under the state government’s integrated pest management (IPM) and integrated nutrient management (INM) schemes.
The state government, he said, is providing Rs 3,000 per acre as incentives to farmers for growing desi cotton and also giving Rs 4,000 per acre under IPM and INM schemes to all cotton-growing farmers irrespective of the variety they grow.
“We have already received data uploaded by farmers on the Haryana government’s ‘Meri Fasal Mera Byora’ portal. Till now, farmers of nearly 68,000 acres of land have uploaded data of desi cotton on their fields against 17,000 acres last year,” said Sihag to ThePrint.
He added that the government was expecting the figure to go up to 85,000 acres by the end of this month.
According to a report by the state’s agricultural department, cotton crop has been grown on 6.65 lakh hectares (16.63 lakh acres) of land in the state this year. If the government’s expectations come true, the area of desi cotton will grow to 5 per cent of the total area. The rest is under American cotton, largely genetically modified (GM).
Last year, cotton was grown on 6.45 lakh hectares (16.12 lakh acres) of land in Haryana. With 17,000 acres under desi cotton, which accounted for just about 1 per cent of the total.
On why the state government is promoting desi cotton when there are few takers for this variety, Sihag said that the desi variety requires less water for irrigation and hence can be grown in drought-prone areas. He added that the Haryana government had also spoken to officials of the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), who said they could procure desi cotton on MSP if its prices fell in the open market.
Sajjan Nain, a farmer from Kharian village, falling in the arid zone of Sirsa in Haryana, used to grow desi cotton on his land, but over the years he diversified to horticulture. He now has kinnow and guava orchards on his agricultural land.
“I didn’t find desi cotton to be a rewarding crop,” he said. “Even marketing was problematic. As the farmers who grew desi cotton kept decreasing, the number of ginners for desi cotton also fell. I started diversifying to horticulture in 2006 by growing kinnows and guavas on a few acres of my land. Now, since the last three years, all my land is under horticulture,” said Nain.
‘Desi cotton difficult to harvest’
Ratti Ram, a farmer from Sirsa’s Begu village, grows desi cotton on one acre of his five acres of land. According to him, he grows this variety to prepare “hybrid seed” for sale.
According to him, while the price for American cotton was Rs 6,500 per quintal Wednesday, the price for desi cotton was Rs 800 to Rs 1,000 higher per quintal.
“Though the rate of desi cotton is higher than American cotton in the market, it is difficult to harvest as labourers, who pick cotton and receive payment on the basis of the weight of harvested crop, refuse to pick desi cotton because of its lighter weight,” said Ram, adding that he has to put his own family members to work every time he harvests the crop.
Dr Dilip Monga, a former Head of the Sirsa-based ICAR’s Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR), explained that the average weight of a boll of desi cotton is 2 to 2.5 grams against 4 to 5 grams for American cotton.
“In the time a worker takes to pick 70 to 80 kilograms of cotton from the American variety, a person picking desi cotton gets just 30 to 35 kilograms,” said Monga.
He, however, added that desi cotton has the advantage that it needs less water, is immune to sucking pests like whitefly, doesn’t suffer from leaf curl virus, and, at present, its price in the market is also better than for American cotton.
“Tomorrow, if more farmers start growing desi varieties, the prices can fall because there is a limited demand for this variety,” he added.
Shattering (falling of bolls) is another problem faced commonly while harvesting desi varieties of cotton.
“If a farmer fails to pick the cotton in time, the bolls tend to shatter resulting in a fall in yield, though some shattering tolerant varieties have also come now,” Monga said.
Sushil Mittal, President of the Haryana Cotton Ginners Association, told The Print that though desi cotton is used for surgical purposes, there is no demand for the commodity in the textile industry where most of the cotton produced in the country is used.
“Because of its better outturn (38 to 40 kg per quintal of seed cotton against 35 kg in the case of American cotton), ginners earlier used desi cotton for mixing with American cotton before packing the bales. However, the price of desi cotton is now higher than American cotton, and hence mixing is not a viable option,” Mittal added.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)