After the fiasco with Bt cotton in Vidarbha, the rise in the prices of cotton comes as a piece of good news for India second-largest cotton production state. This sudden increase in the prices of cotton according to experts has occurred due to the pandemic playing a crucial role in limiting labour and transportation and thereby increasing the price of cotton.
This huge spike might however be followed by a big dip in the graphs as the economy slowly recovers from the setback caused by the pandemic.
Till then, however, Cotton will be bought at dreamy rates of Rs 7000 or even 8000 in some areas. According to farmers, Rs 7,000 per quintal is the best price they can receive. After 2011, market pricing has never returned to this level, and farmers were forced to accept the substantially lower MSP.
Although heavy rains did destroy a lot of crops across the Indian plains, India being the largest producer of cotton across the world only stands to gain from this spike in prices caused by the pandemic.
In May, Mahrashtra’s cotton industry couldn’t sell cotton crops worth more than Rs 5500 crore due to unseasonal rains and the nationwide lockdown which was imposed due to Covid and although nothing can bring back the lost crops the current spike in cotton prices can be seen as heavens way of giving them their due justice.
This also comes as a relief for farmers battling pests like the pink bollworm while growing Bacillus thuringiensis cotton which had caused a lot of losses when the pests plaguing cotton evolved. This has also been the case in Punjab where sellers of spurious seeds and pesticides ended up causing a lot of farmers to lose their cotton crops to the pests.
Though cottons price has shot up it will surely fall down soon so its the need of the hour for people to also grow other crops like mushrooms etc.
