The budget has announced a scheme for enhancing the yield of extra long staple (ELS) cotton. This is expected to help increase the manufacturing of value added garments and also reduce imports of extra long staple cotton.

After the introduction of Bt technology only for long staple cotton, the industry started facing a shortage of extra long staple cotton. The industry’s requirement of extra long staple cotton is around 20 lakh bales while the country produces only five lakh bales and heavily depends on imports of superior quality extra long staple cotton.

The term extra long staple cotton means cotton that is produced from pure strain varieties of the Barbadense species or any hybrid of the species, or other similar types of extra long staple cotton. Short staple cotton is quicker and cheaper to grow, process, and weave than long staple cotton, meaning that cotton products made from short staple cotton can be sold at a cheaper price. But in this case, quality tumps price in the long run. As staple length increases, so does cotton’s soft, silky feel. For this reason, long staple cotton is a popular choice to make sheets, towels, and other quality products. Items made with long staple cotton don’t pill or tear asmuch and can even become softer over time