"The Cotton Revolution: Breaking the Fabric of India"
2025-10-27 12:24:37
Threads of Change: Reweaving the Fabric of India's Cotton Sector
Global warming-induced climate change is exacerbating India's cotton crisis, increasing pest attacks and disease outbreaks, leading to declining yields and productivity. India's cotton production for the 2024-25 marketing year is projected to reach its lowest level in more than a decade and a half at 29.4 million bales. This continues a decade-long decline in production from the peak of 39.8 million bales achieved in 2013-14.
Climate change has disrupted weather patterns and altered temperatures. Changing weather and rising temperatures have created conditions where pests, especially cotton's age-old enemy, the pink bollworm, can thrive. This has also weakened the crop's ability to resist such attacks.
These factors are increasing the cost of cotton cultivation and reducing yields, creating a storm that is eroding the profits of cotton growers. These factors are pushing farmers toward more profitable alternatives, leading to a decline in cotton acreage, even in top cotton-producing states like Gujarat, and in turn, further fueling the decline of cotton production.
Nearly 60 million people depend on the cotton industry as a source of income, so this sector is in dire need of attention. A holistic approach to crop protection that is proven effective, incorporates technology, significantly reduces crop losses, and ultimately brings farmers back to cotton cultivation could be the key to turning the cotton sector around.
Integrated pest management can lead such an approach. Integrated pest management (IPM) offers a practical, future-ready, and sustainable solution to address the pest-related challenges facing cotton production. This approach combines multiple pest-management practices, such as biological, cultural, mechanical, and chemical methods, to manage pests in an ecologically balanced and economically viable manner.
In contrast to traditional methods that rely heavily on chemical pesticides, IPM takes a more balanced approach, prioritizing sustainable techniques such as crop rotation and the use of natural predators, and using chemicals only when absolutely necessary.
The benefits of IPM are proven. For example, rice farmers who adopted an IPM approach have seen yield increases of up to 40%. But IPM can only work to a certain extent. In today's challenging agricultural landscape, technology is crucial to combating pest threats. Artificial intelligence and drones help farmers detect pest and disease outbreaks before they spread to a large crop area.
For example, drones can roam the fields and act as farmers' eyes, quickly scanning the cultivated area and accurately detecting any pest attacks or disease outbreaks.
On the other hand, manual inspections for pest infestations in crops are both time- and labor-intensive, and the presence of pests is often detected when it's too late.
Drones can also be used for spraying pesticides, making the process safer by reducing human exposure.
Certainly, the government has recognized the need for a systematic change in the cotton cultivation sector and launched the National Cotton Productivity Mission (NCPM). The NCPM is a five-year mission aimed at halting the decline in cotton production and is designed as a springboard for the entire cotton ecosystem, starting from the farm level to milling operations and even exports.
At the farm level, it aims to empower farmers by providing them with technical assistance to adopt a modern, technologically advanced, climate-friendly approach to cotton cultivation and crop protection. Furthermore, it aims to boost the textile sector and ultimately exports.
The NCPM is in line with India's 5F vision of "farm to fiber, fiber to factory, factory to fashion, and fashion to foreign."
To be successful, it requires private sector support. Private sector participation in the NCPM could revolutionize the cotton sector. It could provide the NCPM with the critical momentum that could take it from policy to reality.
Simply put, India needs a cotton revival. A well-thought-out approach to pest management, resilient to today's challenges, combined with private sector participation in an ambitious NCPM, can help make this a reality.
