Silvio Ávila
20
Cotton lint
flies high
Bahia cotton ismaking
a good recovery and
reaches its highest
productivity, giving rise
to optimismfor bigger
planted areas in the
coming season
Weather conditions back to normal and strategic initia-
tives at field level made productivity climb to the highest
point in Western Bahia in the 2016/17 growing season. The
region accounts for the largest part of the
crop in the State, which, in turn, is the
second biggest producer in the Country,
with a performance of 310 arrobas per
hectare, almost twice as much as in the
previous season, badly affected by ad-
verse climate conditions. With 190 thou-
sand hectares devoted to cotton, the
smallest area in recent years, the pro-
duction of seed cotton (cotton boll) to-
taled 883,5 thousand tons in the West
(353 thousand tons of cotton lint), while in the State, in-
cluding the Southwest producing region, 201.6 thousand
hectares were cultivated, resulting into a crop of 937.5
thousand tons (393.7 thousand tons of lint).
The numbers were presented to the Technical Council of
the Bahia Association of Farmers and Irrigators (Aiba) by the
Bahia Association of Cotton Producers (Abapa). The good pro-
ductivity results of the crop, according to the first estimate
by the farmers’ entity, should prompt the farmers to increase
their planted areas by 35% in the next season (to 256 thou-
sand hectares in theWest and to 272 thousand hectares in the
State). Showing confidence in this resumptionmove, Júlio Cé-
zar Busato, president of Abapa, comments that, after below
historical average rainfall levels throughout the region, “fortu-
natelyweather conditions are back tonormal andwe are cele-
Productionof seed
cottonamounted
to310 arrobas
perhectare inthe
2016/17growing
season
brating record productivity rates”.
Furthermore, the official observes that “in
the difficult moments the farmers improved
their production processes, made strides in
technology and equipment, pursuing high-
er efficiency”. He reports that tilled plots in
the region had a yield of up to 500 arrobas
per hectare, “which was unimaginable in Bra-
zil up to some time ago”. Busato emphasizes,
in particular, effects of strategic initiatives de-
veloped by the farmers, jointly with Abapa’s
technical team, in the Phytosanitary Program
for the Prevention and Control of the Boll
Weevil, thus reducing the number of pesticide
applications, resulting into zero damage.
“We are all doingour homework andusing
the necessary technology to produce more
cottonwith higher fiber quality, which has be-
come one of the highlights in the region”, says
the president of the farmers’ association. In
his conclusion, he maintains that the farm-
ers will not only resume their planted areas
for the coming crop, there will be a continu-
ity towards this direction in the years to come,
so as to take full advantage of the installed ca-
pacity of 400 thousand hectares and, there-
fore, generate the wealth and development
that the crop is in a position to provide for the
region and the State.
a fibra BAIAna
bahia fiber
Números do algodão do Oeste da Bahia em 10 anos
Fonte:
Conselho Técnico da Aiba comAbapa. –
* Estimativa inicial.
Safra
Área (mil ha) Produtividade (@/ha) Capulho (mil t)
2006/07
276,8
265
1.099,1
2007/08
293,4
270
1.188,4
2008/09
261,7
220
863,5
2009/10
244,9
253
929,4
2010/11
370,8
270
1.501,7
2011/12
387,1
204
1.184,7
2012/13
256,5
230
884,9
2013/14
308,0
269
1.243,3
2014/15
267,0
269
1.183,2
2015/16
240,0
189
756,0
2016/17
190,0
310
883,5
2017/18*
256,0
310
1.190,0
