Indian cotton acreage is likely to drop by 7% in 2015-16, as plunging prices and fears of a drought prompt farmers to switch to cultivating pulses in the hope for better returns.
Lower output at the world's No.2 cotton exporter, after the United States, should help give legs to a recovery in global benchmark prices that have risen 13 per cent from a five-year low of 57.05 cents per pound plumbed in January.