Indian cotton acreage down in 2012-13 (India)

The Indian cotton monitoring body - Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) met today but failed to throw up an estimate of the cotton crop in cotton season 2012-13, beginning from October 1, 2012, but gave an estimate of cotton acreage in the next season. 

A source in the Textile Commissioners Office informed fibre2fashion that since the cotton crop has not flowered properly due to deficit rains, it made it impossible to estimate the crop and would be available only next month.

The area under cotton cultivation in the 2012-13 season is down from the current 2011-12 season. CAB has estimated 2012-13 cotton acreage at 11.02 million hectares against 12.17 million hectares in 2011-12, down 9.44 percent.

Textile Commissioner – Mr Joshi informed that India's cotton exports will be around 12.7 million bales (1 bale = 170 kg) in the season that began on October 1, 2011 up around 10 percent from an earlier estimate.

However the meeting has provided estimates of the cotton crop in the current season. According to CAB estimates, on the supply side, opening stock was 4.05 million bales; cotton crop was 33.9 million bales and imports stood at around 500,000 bales, which totals to 38.4 million bales.

On the demand side, mill consumption stood at 22.17 million bales, SSI consumption was 2.44 million bales, non-textile use was 1.6 million bales and exports were 7.65 million bales for a total of 33.8 million bales.

According to estimates, this might leave a closing stock of 4.57 million bales when the current season closes on September 30, 2012.