Cotton

Marketing

Introduction

• Marketing of cotton is a specialised activity by itself involving handling, packing movement of cotton bales, grading, quality tests and problems of payment. As compared to other commercial crops, cotton has to pass through multiple numbers of intermediary agencies, as it has to traverse through a long route before reaching the end user.
• The marketing of cotton commences from harvesting of kappas and ends after the lint is procured by the millers. Between these two points, cotton passes through several stages, namely sale of kappas in primary and secondary markets, ginning and processing, storage, transport to terminal markets and sale of lint to the consuming mills.

Primary Market

• In primary markets kappas is sold by the grower to the village merchant without the intervention of any intermediaries.

Secondary Market

• A majority of the growers are now disposing off kapas in the secondary.
• In the secondary wholesale markets, business is conduced in accordance with local customs and practices.
• In centers where regulated markets have been established, bylaws framed by the market committee and approved by the State Governments govern the transactions.
• Open auction system for each individual seller’s produce is generally followed in most of the secondary markets.
• Cotton lint is sold to the textile mills, exporters and traders dealing with consuming mils or engaged in inter-state trade.
• Bombay, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad and Kanpur are some of the important terminal markets of which Bombay is the largest.
• The sellers either directly or through the brokers approach the buyers with samples of cotton and enter into transactions.

System of Marketing

• Cotton reaches the spinning and ginning mills via commission agents and wholesalers.
• The farmers normally bring their produce to the nearest market by cart, truck or by other means after packing it is the form of bale.
• Based on the grades decided, cotton lots are put to public auction, where commission agents or wholesalers participate.
• The Commission agents to all the work in handling the kappas on behalf of the farmer and arange to sell it either in presence or absence of the farmers.
• Storage space, arrangement of auction, inviting tenders, announcement of market rates and market information are managed by the market committee.
• The market committee collects market cess for its services and commission agent charges his commission.
• The farmer gets the value of his produce after all these deductions.
• The wholesaler normally transports the cotton to Bombay or arranges to gin it locally and sell the lint to spinning mills.
• With the establishment of number of ginning / spinning mills in private and cooperative sector at many taluks and districts, the bulk movement of kappas and lint to weaving mills located at Bombay and Surat is reduced in recent years.
• The lint/kappas is mostly consumed locally and surplus lint may reach distant spinning mills.

Problems of Marketing

Problems of Packing and Handling

• The Kappas is packed conventionally in loosely knit bag of Deccan hemp or Manila hemp fibres. The empty bag of hemp, specially knit for this purpose is called "bardan".

• The bag is flexible and can hold a varying quantity of 150 to 230g kappas. Packing the seed cotton (kappas) in bardan to make it what is called as bale has resulted into many problems. They are :

Difficulties in Packing the Kappas

• Age old system of packing the kappas in bardan involves hanging of losely knit hemp bag from the top of the roof and pouring the kappas layer by layer with intermittent application of manual pressure. This involves a lot of labour time. As the bale is packed manually, the quantity of kappas held in a bale is directly prportional to the pressure applied. Approximately two labour can pack 6-8 cotton bales in 8 hours. A cotton farmer producing about 80-90 quintals of cotton from 8-10 acres hybrid cotton should be able to pack about 60 bales requiring 20-22 mandays.

Exposure of Kappas to Dust, Rain

• Conventionally packed cotton bale is exposed to dust, rain, heat or dirt of many forms during its handling, storage and marketing. This results in the loss of quality of fibres at all these stages. Ultimately, the farmer is put to loss, in terms of reduced quality of the fibres.

Difficulties in Standardization

• A cotton bale is likely to weight any thing between 150 to 230kg. Depending upon the skill and body weight of the labourer at the time of packing, the quantity of kappas held in each bale varies.

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