Value Chain of Cotton Industry: A Study in Adilabad and Nalgonda Districts of Telangana

Aim: To identify the main chain actors involved in value chain of cotton and asses their linkage, roles and responsibilities in the value chain and to map the complete value chain of cotton from producers to consumers.

Methodology: Descriptive statistics mainly value chain analysis is used to map the generic value chain of cotton. The required primary data about the movement of cotton along the length of the value chain were collected from different stake holders involved in the value chain through pretested questionnaires by employing personal interview method.

Results: It was found that value chain of cotton includes many stakeholders like input suppliers, producers, intermediaries, processors like ginners, spinners, weavers, dyers and printers and garment manufactures, playing their respective role in the value chain.

Conclusion: Cotton crop undergoes multistage processing at the industrial level and it has very complex value chain involving multiple stake holders. Cotton has enormous potential as a source of raw materials for the textile industry. However, the low productivity, which is primarily the result of suboptimal farming practices, limits the total expansion of the cotton business. There is a need to set up a common platform which engage all stakeholders from farmer to consumers and strengthen the linkage between them so as to trade without the mediation of the brokers or commission agents.