The Hindu : Front Page : Model farms to promote cotton cultivation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 16, 2005

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Model farms to promote cotton cultivation

M. Soundariya Preetha

COIMBATORE: This is an effort to promote cultivation of quality cotton and enable more farmers visit demonstration farms. Cotton is the lifeline for hundreds of spinning mills in this textile city. It is now purchased mainly from other States in large quantities and even from other countries.

The mills here have taken up programmes such as contract farming to boost cotton cultivation. One attempt by the South India Cotton Association (SICA) in this regard is development of model farms in the city.

The Association started this programme last year and plans to continue it this year too. It joined hands with Super Spinning Mills and raised Extra Long Staple (ELS) variety on 25 cents on its premises last year. A number of visitors to the textile units here went to this farm too, as it was on the way to the airport and within the city. Earlier, any visitor to Coimbatore, interested in seeing a cotton farm had to travel at least 50 km. Encouraged by the response, the Association has extended this to 30 cents this year and will continue to cultivate the ELS variety.

The Association plans to develop another demonstration farm this year on about 25 cents on Avinashi Road. The variety to be cultivated will be decided soon. These attempts will promote cotton cultivation and benefit the textile industry here.

SICA secretary K. Viswanathan said the association planned to invite farmer groups and representatives of the textile industry to the farms this year.

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