Cotton

Cotton is an important commodity throughout the world. Cotton is a soft and staple fiber that grows in the Americas, Asia and Africa. The leading exporters of cotton include China, United States and India. Cotton is grown in 17 states in India and the crop requires 6 to 8 months to mature.

Cotton provides the basic raw material (cotton fiber) to cotton textile industry. Cotton seed can be used as part of fodder for milch cattle to get better milk.

There are three types of Cotton fiber and that includes long staple cotton, medium staple cotton and short staple cotton.

All over the world cotton is grown primarily for the production of lint. The latter is globally valued for the manufacture of textiles, apparel and related products. Lint is obtained from seed cotton after a process called ginning during which lint and cotton seed are separated mechanically. Because the value of lint obtained from a metric ton of seed cotton is about 3 to 4 times the combined value of oil and cake derived from the processing of the seeds, it has tended to be prioritized in spite of cotton seeds accounting for up to 60 percent or more of the weight of each kilogram of seed cotton. For this reason, cotton seeds tend to be best looked at as a by-product of the ginning process.

The high demand for cotton in Asia and the consumption projected to reach around 27.5 million metric tons in 2018/19, environmental conditions too would help to increase the production in the global market.