After starting this year’s cotton seeding in the middle of April, everything is going well across North India. Initial reports indicate that Rajasthan’s cotton sowing area will grow since farmers there have chosen to cultivate cotton this year. In Punjab and Haryana, the area may also stay the same or slightly increase. According to preliminary projections, the total sowing area in north India is anticipated to increase by 5-7% overall. Traders claimed that last season, cotton produced a better return for farmers than other crops. Farmers were encouraged to plant the crop because of the rain from last month.
According to trade sources, seeding in the three cotton-growing states of Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana has reached about 50% completion. Farmers have started. soon following the harvest of the mustard crop. Additionally, the rain in April gave farmers the moisture they desperately needed to plant cotton. According to traders, farmers are happy with the return on their cotton production from the previous year. The prices paid to farmers were often 30–40% higher than the Minimum Support Price (MSP). For the current marketing year (October 2022–September 2023), the government set the medium staple unginned cotton (kapas) MSP at $6,080 per quintal. The natural fiber’s market pricing remained above 8,000 per quintal.
A second dealer, who wished to remain unnamed, added that Rajasthan’s cotton-sowing area may rise by 10% to 13%. But in Punjab and Haryana, it might fall by about 5%. He predicted 54 lakh units of manufacturing. bales of 170 kg each during the upcoming cotton marketing season, against production of 41 lakh bales during the current season. He projected production of 35 lakh bales in Rajasthan, 15 lakh bales in Haryana and 4 lakh bales in Punjab. Last year, cotton was sown on 5.97 lakh hectares in Rajasthan, 6.50 lakh hectares in Haryana, and 2.48 lakh hectares in Punjab.
