Adilabad: With more farmers showing interest in the crop instead of soya, the areas under cotton farming during Kharif in Adilabad district is expected go up. Farmers have started sowing cotton seeds following monsoon rain.
It is estimated that cotton seeds will be sown over 4.5 lakh acres against 4.16 lakh acres last year in the district. The area of cotton cultivation in the undivided Adilabad district is nearly 18 lakh acres.
Agriculture department officials claim they were expecting a rise in the acreage under cotton cultivation as farmers shifted to cotton from soya since they were not getting remunerative prices for soya.
After a long wait, farmers are preparing land for sowing other variety of cotton seeds. Adilabad farmers insisted on Rasi 659 variety cotton seed. The district is popular for cotton cultivation and has several ginning and pressing industries in Telangana.
The Centre had offered Rs 7,020 minimum support price for cotton in 2023 and cotton farmers expect a hike this year. Last year, cotton farmers had suffered losses due to damage to standing crops owing to floods.
