According to EICA, a study of the statistics relating to the area, production and productivity of cotton in the top 10 cotton producing countries in the world during the last two decades leads to certain interesting findings.

In majority of these countries, both production and productivity have gone up substantially although the area under cultivation moved in the opposite direction. While the total world cotton area has not witnessed any significant change during the last two decades, there have been major changes within the country. For instance, even though there was a 19 per cent drop in area in the US, India registered an increase of 18 per cent, whereas Pakistan registered as much as 44 per cent rise.Although their total share may not be very high, cotton area in the countries of Francophone Africa jumped by over three times between 1981-82 and 1998-99.

Another country in which the cotton area increased by more than three times is Argentina. On the other hand, there was sharp decline in cotton area from three million hectares to just about 0.84 million hectares in Brazil. The case of Australia is unique in that its cotton area rose by nearly seven times during the last two decades to emerge as one of the major cotton exporting countries. Significantly, India, China and the USA accounted for more than half (53 per cent) of the total world cotton area in 1998-99 almost the same share as in 1980-81.

As for production, the world crop witnessed a 33 per cent rise between 1980-81 and 1998-99. Except for Uzbekistan and Brazil, other cotton producing countries also registered an increase. While India and Pakistan doubled their cotton production the increase was more than seven times in Australia and nearlyfive times in Francophone Africa.

China's crop, already the highest in the world in 1980-81, went up further by 66 per cent in 1998-99, in spite of a slight fall in area, to maintain the leading position. Similarly, despite the fall in area, the crop production in the US was higher by 25 per cent in 1998-99 compared to 1980-81. Two countries among the top 10 that harvested smaller crops in 1998-99 compared to 1980-81 was Uzbekistan and Brazil.

The three leading cotton producing countries China, the US and India produced about 47 per cent of the world cotton crop in 1980-81, and their share rose to nearly 56 per cent in 1998-99. It is remarkable that productivity of cotton went up substantially in all the countries with the sole exception of Uzbekistan. In this regard, China and Brazil have scored over the rest with their average yields more than doubling.