According to statistics from relevant Indian departments, as of September 2, the cotton planting area in India totaled 12.57 million hectares (equivalent to approximately 189 million acres), and the cotton planting progress was 7% ahead of the same period last year, continuing to be at the fastest level in recent years. The cotton planting progress has slowed down. slow. Among them, the cotton planting area in Maharashtra and Gujarat has the most significant year-on-year growth, 7% and 13% respectively.
Obviously, under the premise that cotton planting in India has basically ended in 2022, a substantial increase in planting area has been “certain”, although it is lower than the 13.3-13.5 million hectares predicted by CAI in late June and slightly lower than the government’s setting However, due to the high temperature and drought in the northern cotton area of India from April to June, the continuous large-scale precipitation in the central cotton area in July/August (floods occurred in some areas), the competition for land between grain and cotton, the competition for land between beans and cotton, and the price of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, etc. Under adverse circumstances such as relatively large increases, the growth of India’s cotton planting area in 2022 has reached expectations.
According to the latest USDA report, India’s cotton output in 2022/23 is 5.987 million tons (the same as the August report), higher than the previous year’s 653,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 12.24% (significantly higher than the increase in the actual cotton planting area in India); and A report released by the U.S. Agricultural Counselor in March showed that India’s cotton production in 2022/2 will reach 27.7 million bales (480 pounds per bale, equivalent), an increase of 5 percentage points from the previous year.
As of now, CAI, CCI and other institutions have not released the latest forecast for India’s cotton production in 2022/23. However, some cotton processing companies and traders in Gujarat, Maharashtra and the southern cotton region are generally skeptical and unrecognizable of the USDA data, believing that the output may be overestimated by 400,000 to 500,000 tons.
On the one hand, continuous rainfall in the central cotton region since late August (floods broke out in Gujarat, Maharashtra, etc.) and leaf curl disease in the northern cotton-producing areas are expected to lead to a 5-7% reduction in cotton production, especially in the central cotton region. There has been a substantial increase in planting but it is difficult to increase income significantly; on the other hand, the Indian weather forecast shows that India’s main cotton-producing areas may receive continuous heavy rainfall in September/October (but the northwest region continues to have insufficient precipitation and severe drought), including central cotton. Cotton growth will be greatly affected in both the cotton region and the southern cotton region, and there are great variables in yield and cotton quality indicators. Furthermore, some seed companies have supplied cotton seeds of poor quality, resulting in yields that may be significantly lower than expected and The pests and diseases are serious.
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