User:Vivek Rai/Central Institute for Cotton Research

Central Institute for Cotton Research abbr. CICR is central research institute established by Indian Council of                       Agricultural Research to promote long term research efforts in cotton production and also to provide support and conduct applied research on cotton with active involvement of State Universities. The research efforts of CICR are under All India Coordinated Cotton Improvement Project                      (AICCIP), initiated by the Council in the year 1967. It's headquarters is located in Nagpur and the other two regional units viz., southern and northern located at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu and Sirsa,Haryana respectively.

History
India is the only country to grow all the four species of cultivated cotton viz., Gossypium                       arboreum, G.herbaceum (Asian cotton), G.barbadense (Egyptian cotton) and G.hirsutum                      (American upland cotton) besides other hybrid cotton varieties. The importance of cotton production and necessity of research in this field can be felt from the fact that India has the largest acreage (103.29 lakh.ha) under cotton                          which accounts for 33% of the global cotton area  and has the productivity of 517 kg lint/ha and ranks second in production                      (295 lakh bales) during 2009-10. It contributes to 23% of the global cotton produce. Feeling the necessity of sustaining pace in national agricultural and economic                       scenario, the Indian Council of                        Agricultural Research established the Central Institute for Cotton Research                        at Nagpur in April, 1976.

Socio-economic impact assessment of Bt cotton in India
Cotton production increased by over 9% with the use hybrid Bt cotton seeds, helping the country become net exporter of the cash-rich crop, a field study jointly conducted by a research institute 'Council for Social Development' and 'Bharat Krishak Samaj', a farmers organization found. The study on also highlighted that area under cotton has                increased by 4.91% in the last 10 years.

The survey was done in nine-cotton growing states of Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

The survey also indicated to have recorded a zero suicide figure in Karnataka where the figure varied between 1-4 per cent.

Implementation of Pilot Projects
Maharashtra Government in collaboration with CICR, implemented a pilot project in Vidarbha region, highly prone to farmer suicides; based on a Brazilian model to enhance the per-acre yield of cotton while reducing its per-acre cultivation cost. However, Since the Brazilian models are based on straight cotton crops while Indian government promotes the use of Bt cotton crops, there seemed to arise a contradiction in the policies followed.