Opinion | White Gold: India’s Cotton Story

66-year-old Vinodbhai Virjibhai Vadodriya, a farmer living in Gujarat’s Rajkot, has been producing cotton throughout his life. Often the changing temperatures and plant diseases forced him to bear heavy losses. When he was introduced to the High-Density Planting System, he implemented this system in his field. The outcome surprised him. He produced 15 quintals of cotton per acre, a jump of 30-35 percent over his previous produce using the old method.

In the previous agriculture year, instead of the usual 135 cm by 45 cm spacing, Vadodriya packed his plants closer, at 90 cm by 15 cm.

Vinodbhai says he was informed that he should harvest earlier, which meant less damage from the pink bollworm, one of cotton’s most stubborn pests. Most of the farmers in the neighbourhood noticed the change in the outcome and they also decided to follow suit.

Bhaskar Tapiram Chaudhary, a cotton farmer from Jalgaon district, Maharashtra

Six hundred kilometres away, in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon, Bhaskar Tapiram Chaudhary was also introduced to the High-Density Planting System, in 2025. Bhaskar, who is in his 50s, remembers how he was initially reluctant to switch to closer spacing, because that was not his usual method. However, he went on, cleaned up his fertilizer use, and managed pests and nutrients carefully.

The results also surprised him. His yield rose from 8 quintals an acre to 11 (37.5 % rise), despite a dry spell that would normally have hurt his crop.

The improved produce of thousands of farmers indicated how India’s cotton policy: small, practical changes in farming technique, backed by government support, is producing significant outcomes.

And likely so, India’s cotton sector remains in need of reforms.

According to official statistics, India has more land under cotton cultivation than anyone else globally. The country, at present, has 114.84 lakh hectares, about 38 percent of the world’s cotton area.

India is the only country wherein all four known cotton species are cultivated.

The industry is so widespread that at least 6 million farmers grow cotton here, and almost 40-50 million people earn a living from processing and trading it. That is why cotton is “White Gold” for most Indians.

Despite its critical importance, India ranks only second in actual production, behind its massive acreage lead.

In 2025-2026, output stood at 290.91 lakh bales, while domestic demand ran higher, at 328 lakh bales. The reason behind this gap is that India’s fields simply have not been able to produce as much cotton per acre as compared to Brazil and the US.

However, the farmers of Rajkot and Jalgaon have shown that this gap can be altered using basic and modern methods.

What is the government doing to fix it?

In the recent past, the central government has responded with a mix of price support and productivity push. The Minimum Support Price for 2026-27 was raised to INR 8,267 per quintal for medium-staple cotton and INR 8,667 for long-staple (an increase of INR 557 over the previous year).

The Cotton Corporation of India expanded its procurement network from 508 centres to 571, now covering 152 districts, and bought 105.09 lakh bales worth INR 41,530 crore this season alone.

On the productivity side, a five-year Mission for Cotton Productivity was launched in 2025-26 with INR 5,659 crore allocated for it, aiming to nearly double output — from 297 lakh bales to 498 lakh bales by 2031. It will reach 32 lakh farmers across 140 districts.

The High-Density and Closer Spacing planting systems, the very techniques that worked for farmer Vinodbhai and Bhaskar, are central to this new change. Field trials have already recorded yield gains of roughly 40 percent under high-density planting and over 32 percent under closer spacing.

Technological intervention has also made it easier for farmers. As per records, Kapas Kisan app now has over 41 lakh farmers registered, letting them book procurement slots, get Aadhaar-linked payments, and track updates by SMS — turning what used to be long queues into a paperless process.

And there’s a quieter, longer-term bet: Kasturi Cotton Bharat, a branding and traceability programme using QR codes and blockchain to certify premium Indian cotton for global buyers.

Estimates suggest that over 3.29 lakh bales have been certified so far, a small start toward positioning Indian cotton as a mark of quality abroad rather than just a cheap bulk export.

The future ahead

There is a lot that needs to be taken into consideration before we expect greater outcomes. It’s spacing between plants, apps for slot booking, QR codes on bales. India’s cotton sector doesn’t need a revolution — it needs to replicate what farmers in Rajkot and Jalgaon have done and the process needs to be replicated across millions of acres.

To summarise, if the Mission for Cotton Productivity delivers even a fraction of its 2031 target, India won’t just grow the most cotton land in the world. It will finally grow enough cotton to match it.