December 5, 2012

Due to a build-up in stocks to a record high has made the prices to drop and persuaded growers to switch to other crops making global cotton production by next season to drop to its largest fall in more than 20 years.

The International Cotton Advisory Committee, in its first forecasts for the 2013-14 year which begins next August, estimated that world cotton production will fall 11.0% to 23.19 million tonnes.

A drop of that scale, not seen since the early 1990s, is "due to lower cotton prices and increased attractiveness of competing crops", the ICAC, an intergovernmental group, said.

Cotton values have fallen by two-thirds from their all-time highs reached in March 2011, depressed by the run-up in inventories encouraged by higher values.

The ICAC nudged higher by 228,000 tonnes to a record high of 16.622 tonnes equivalent to more than eight months' use - its forecast for world cotton's inventories at the close of 2012-13.