“White Gold: India’s Cotton Story” (PIB Backgrounder)
India’s cotton sector remains central to agriculture, textiles, and exports, with new MSP support, productivity missions, and traceability branding shaping its next phase.
- India’s cotton sector combines farm production, processing, textile manufacturing, and exports in one value chain.
- The Mission for Cotton Productivity is a five-year programme that seeks higher output through research, innovation, extension, and climate-resilient varieties.
- The Kapas Kisan App supports cotton procurement by allowing self-registration, slot booking, Aadhaar-linked payments, and real-time updates.
- Kasturi Cotton Bharat uses certification, branding, QR-based traceability, and blockchain technology to improve the market identity of Indian cotton.
What happened
India’s cotton sector is being pushed through a mix of price support, productivity missions, digital procurement, and branding. The Government of India presents cotton as a strategic crop for agriculture, textiles, and exports, while setting a production goal of higher output by 2031 through the Mission for Cotton Productivity.
Why cotton matters for India
UPSC can ask about cotton as a commercial crop, the role of Minimum Support Price and the Cotton Corporation of India, Bt cotton and high-density planting as productivity tools, or Kasturi Cotton Bharat as a traceability and branding initiative for Indian cotton.
