Cotton

Cotton is a tropical and subtropical fibre crop derived from the seed-hair lint of plants of the genus Gossypium, of which four species are cultivated worldwide — the New World tetraploids G. hirsutum (upland cotton, over 90% of global output) and G. barbadense (long-staple Egyptian/Pima), and the Old World diploids G. arboreum and G. herbaceum (desi cottons of the Indian subcontinent). It is a kharif crop in India, sown with the southwest monsoon between April and June and picked from October to January. Its agro-climatic requirements are exacting: a frost-free period of 180–210 days, uniform temperatures of 21–30°C, 50–100 cm of rainfall (or assured irrigation), bright sunshine during the boll-bursting phase, and deep, moisture-retentive, lime-rich black regur (regar) soil — the Deccan trap basalt soils being globally renowned for cotton, which is why it is called the "black cotton soil."

The fibre is graded by staple length — short (below 24 mm), medium (24.5–26 mm) and long (above 27 mm) — with long-staple commanding premium prices for fine textiles. In India the principal producing belt comprises Gujarat (the largest producer), Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, organised into the northern (irrigated Punjab–Haryana–Rajasthan), central (rainfed Gujarat–Maharashtra–MP) and southern zones. India is the world's largest area under cotton and rivals China and the United States in output. A defining feature of the modern Indian crop is Bt cotton, a genetically modified variety incorporating Bacillus thuringiensis genes for bollworm resistance, approved by the GEAC in 2002; it now covers over 90% of India's cotton acreage, though debates over yield stagnation, pink bollworm resistance and farmer distress (notably in the Vidarbha region) persist.

Globally, cotton anchors a vast textile economy and was historically central to colonial commerce — Manchester's mills drew raw cotton from the American South and from India under the British Raj, and the crop is bound up with the history of plantation slavery and the American Civil War's cotton-export blockade. As of 2026 India administers a Minimum Support Price for both medium- and long-staple cotton, procured through the Cotton Corporation of India, and runs missions such as the Technology Mission on Cotton and promotion of Kasturi Cotton Bharat branding for traceable, premium Indian fibre. Major exporters include the United States, Brazil and India; China remains the largest consumer through its spinning industry.

For UPSC, cotton appears chiefly in General Studies Paper I (Geography of India — agriculture and cropping patterns) and in the Geography optional, where questions probe its soil-climate requirements, the regur soil linkage, state-wise distribution, and staple-length grading. It also surfaces in GS Paper III under agriculture and food-processing economics — MSP, Bt cotton biotechnology, and the cotton-textile value chain. Prelims frequently tests it through factual match-the-following on producing states, the kharif classification, and GM-crop approval (Bt cotton being the only commercially cultivated GM crop in India). Candidates should connect cotton to monsoon dependence, irrigation, and the cotton-textile industry's locational geography.