Value Addition to Cotton By-Products

Abstract

Cotton is a widely cultivated cash crop across the world and India is the largest producer of cotton, which is the major raw material for textile industry. The area under the cotton crop has undergone significant increase in the last decade in order to meet the increasing demand for domestic consumption of cotton by the textile industry. Cottonseed is an important by product that caters to the edible oil requirement and animal feed. Appropriate processing of cottonseed for oil extraction helps to capitalise on the products like linter and hull that has commercial value. The increase in area under cotton has resulted in higher production of biomass, renewable annually, to the tune of 25 million tonnes. Besides household consumption of fuel, the rest of the biomass are burnt in the field. The alternate channels for utilization of crop residue are explored in this paper that can mitigate the impact of field burning of crop residue of cotton on GHG emission. The cotton stalks-based pellets and briquettes as an enterprise can provide avenues for generation of renewable energy on one hand and also serve to provide additional remuneration to the farmers addressing their livelihood issues.