Financial support will be extended to the cotton farmers under this mission with an objective of overall increase in cotton production. The special areas of emphasis will be Integrated Pest Management (IPM), seeds, drip irrigation, sprinkler system, ginning and pressing mills and modernisation of the old textile mills. Also stress will be laid on research and actual production technology.

Chittaranjan Hajra, commissioner of agriculture, Government of India, gave the outline of the mission while speaking at the inaugural function of the National Cotton Fair, organised by the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), here on Thursday.

Hajra said the cotton crop is integrallyassociated with the agricultural economy of the country and thus the Union Government has always paid special attention to the crop. It has been already providing financial support to the cotton farmers by the way of subsidy through the respective state governments. He said subsidy was given for seeds and in the states such as Maharashtra where most of the agriculture is non-irrigational, special attention was paid to drip irrigation technology.

He also called for community action for proper pest management and crop protection of cotton. He said that united efforts would have to be made by the farmers to decide the varieties of seeds, type and time of spraying of insecticide, so that the problem of cotton could be handled in an integrated way.

He further said that one of the main problems faced by the cotton farmers is that of `treatment before diagnosis'. He said that insecticides and fertilisers are indiscriminately used without testing the type of soil or the gravity and type of the pestinfestation.

This, he said, led to the disaster situation last year when apart from the loss of about a huge amount of money, about 70 crore man-days went down the drain with the cotton crop. He said that however the disaster situation led to increase in awareness level among the cotton farmers, who did not indiscriminately use insecticides this time. This was also perpetuated by the fact that the farmers were not in a financial condition to spend on insecticides.