THIS SHOWS that cotton growers are in deep trouble and that the Vidarbha cotton growers issue can't be discussed in isolation. Hence, the Indian government should hike the Minimum Support Price (MSP) at the national level without any delay, said Kishor Tiwari, president of Nagpur-based Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti, (VJAS), an activist group working for cotton farmer rights.

After one of the largest cotton producing states Maharashtra officially reported cotton crop failure in 4 million hector, the claim of the Indian Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar that other part of India cotton crop yield is much better than dry land region of Maharashtra is likely to be proved wrong, as according to a recent official report on India’s cotton arrivals from the new-season, the cotton crop fell 25% from a year earlier between Oct. 1 and Dec. 25.

After Maharashtra, another largest cotton producer state Andhra Pradesh also reported major cotton crop failure, and has asked for central intervention to compensate the farmers’ losses @ Rs.15,000/- per acre where as another highly irrigated cotton growing state Punjab has approached  the central government to increase cotton MSP to bailout cotton farmers. The same is the case with Gujarat where cotton arrivals decreased 22% to 2.9 million bales in the country's largest cotton producing state.

“This year in India more than 122 million hector land is under cotton cultivation, recording the highest area in the world in cotton cultivation compared to the US and China but recent trend of cotton arrivals is showing clear trend of lowest cotton production likely go under 30 million bales as against 35 million bales produced last year, which is very serious issue. Hence, cotton farmers in India needs urgent bailout package to compensate the huge economic losses due to severe crop failure and steep hike in input and cultivation cost,” said Tiwari.