The Northern India Millers Association (NITMA) has appealed to the Central government to immediately ban cotton export as it was leading to increase in prices of cotton in the domestic market. Ashish Bagrodia,president,NITMA,said here on Monday that due to the failed monsoon and floods in some cotton-growing states,cotton production has been adversely affected this season. The production would be only around 260 lakh bales as against 290 lakh bales produced last year, he said. According to sources,more than 18 lakh bales of the new crop has already been bought by the large traders for export and this has pushed up domestic prices. The price for standard varieties like Shankar-6 has already crossed Rs 25,000 a candy (355-kg pack). The same variety was earlier being sold for around Rs 23,000 per candy. Bagrodia further said that domestic industry was facing shortage of cotton because the best quality cotton was being exported. However,it needs to be mentioned here that traders are buying cotton from the mandis for below Rs 2,800 a quintal (the MSP),and only a few varieties are being purchased in the range of Rs 2,800-3,000 a quintal. Last year,the farmers were given a 43 per cent hike in MSP,due to which the textile industry had suffered. This year,mass export is hurting the industry, said Bagrodia. Potato seed sale: small farmers allege harassmentJalandhar:The Jalandhar Potato Seed Welfare Association,a group of over 45 small farmers,has alleged that big farmers involved in potato-growing were harassing small farmers and putting pressure to sell their potato seed production to them,instead of selling directly to the customers in West Bengal. Jassa Singh Nagra,the president the association,addressed the media here on Monday. He alleged connivance between the big farmers and the police and district market committees. He said if small potato farmers did not sell their produce to the big farmers,then false cases were registered against them,claiming that 10 such cases had been registered in the past few days. He told the media that every year,16,000 trucks of potato seed are sent to West Bengal,of which 2,000 belong to small farmers. The big farmers sell the same seed at higher price,which makes our produce more lucrative. This has angered them and they are harassing us, he said.
