It might be tricky to write about quality considering that this week ‘India is on the moon‘. Indian agricultural excellence is a different world. In this summer growing season, we are obsessing about cotton. There is twelve acres of it planted. It is an intensive crop in terms of labour, inputs and crop care. I do not intend to whine about it again.
This post is about cotton to textile value chain. Growers (us, this season) occupy the lowest rung in the hierarchy of gains and importance as a group. Downstream of us are ginners, spinners, weavers and knitters, garment makers and retailers. There are exporters at each stage considering cotton and textile are major export items for India. All of these groups have their own associations and wield varying levels of influence with the state and central governments. Growers, however, are atomized, small and marginal farmers taking one season at a time.
In a bid to realize better value for the commodity and perhaps export competitiveness, Government of India has launched ‘Kasturi Cotton India’ (KCI) initiative to create premium value cotton that is grown in India as per benchmarked specifications. In February 2023, the Ministry of Textile issued a ‘Quality Control Order for mandatory certification of cotton bales’ to begin working on Kasturi Cotton brand. The ginners have been against the order ever since. This morning’s newspiece got me digging more into it. India’s move to introduce quality standards at ginning stage is certainly a useful one. But ginners do not agree.
Indian government intends to introduce traceability, certification and branding for its cotton. This is the first time that a mandatory quality test in accordance with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is being introduced for an agricultural produce. Every bale of cotton ginned will have to be compliant with the quality standard. The ginners will be penalized if their bales are found substandard.
In the district (Wardha), ginners seem extremely unhappy with this move. They plan to protest against this quality order which will come in effect in November 2023. Their reasons appear not so clear. The district’s association says that all of Vidarbha (Eastern Maharashtra comprising of 11 districts) has three testing laboratories that can certify the quality. Hence, it is not feasible to comply by the quality order. Further, they allege that farmers stand to lose as cotton procurement may not happen due to the bottleneck created at ginning units as every bale has to be certified. Lastly, they say that it is the textile lobby which is imposing quality compliance on ginners and thereby expecting high quality yarn and fabric without incurring costs.
Ginning association appears to have no reason other than wanting to continue with their quality agnostic business-as-usual status. Selling without quality signals has been beneficial for them. Complying with quality order may upset the cart. It may necessitate expensive upgrades in machinery and process to become compliant.
While the ministry insists that growers too stand to gain, it is hard to see how. The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) is mandated to purchase Fair Average Quality (FAQ) grade cotton only. It applies to both medium staple and long staple cotton. Under the FAQ norms the maximum permissible limit for moisture content in cotton is 12 percent. Growers have accepted this FAQ based Minimum Support Price for years (Cotton MSP for 2023-24 ) . MSP continues to be the core of agricultural produce prices and consequently returns for growers. When it is ginners’ turn they see quality compliance as unviable for their business.
Contested Realities 
It’s certainly not good for the farmers, and I fail to see why we need to aim at export quality. Are we unable to consume what we grow?
I tried exploring this question. Thank you for asking. I have posted some notes from a recent textile conference – https://contestedrealities.com/2023/09/06/cotton-value-chain-indian-textile-industry-11th-atexcon-coimbatore/
Thanks, Sachin. I read the notes which were interesting though I do not understand anything about economics, even less about the global economy. I subscribe to the old fashioned view of just growing what we need and selling the surplus. Keep it small and simple. And be grateful to the farmer who does the most important and hardest job.