Growth Performance and Instabilities of Cotton Crop- Macro Level Insights

Cotton being the high value, non-food, fiber crop is grown across seventy countries supporting the lives of closely one billion people. Considering the global importance of crop the study was taken up to assess the growth performance of crop at different levels. Compounded annual growth rates, instability rates and source of instability were estimated for area, production and productivity of ‘white gold’. Inter country, inter states and the inter districts comparison was done for the world, India and the Telangana state, respectively. At global level there was negative growth in the area but there was inclining production and productivity. Mean yield change was the major source of growth in average production at world level. India saw quantum leap in area and production after Bt cotton introduction. The instabilities among the states declined with the spread of new technology. Interaction between changes in the area variance and the mean yield was the source of growth for India. Telangana one of among major cotton producing states also went about rapid acreage expansion with the adoption of Bt cotton. Inclining mean area brought in uprising average production of the crop in the state. Recent decade has seen stagnating and lower productivities in both the state and country. Hence, there is need for new traits to offer resistance against rising pests and new innovative technologies to be developed.