India takes on US, EU on cot­ton at WTO

India has backed calls for a bal­anced out­come on cot­ton at the World Trade Organ­iz­a­tion (WTO), say­ing issues such as local sup­port, mar­ket access and devel­op­ment assist­ance need to be addressed together. India reit­er­ated it already offers duty­free access for cot­ton from least-developed coun­tries. In con­trast, major play­ers includ­ing the US and the EU said a decision on cot­ton should be part of a broader pact on farm reform and not a sep­ar­ate one.

These pos­i­tions were dis­cussed dur­ing the 24th Ded­ic­ated Dis­cus­sion on Cot­ton under­theW­TO­Com­mit­teeon Agri­cul­ture, heldin­Nov­em­ber 2025 and form­ally repor­ted by the WTO Sec­ret­ariat on 21 Janu­ary, as mem­bers intens­i­fied con­sulta­tions ahead of the 14th WTO Min­is­terial Con­fer­ence (MC14) sched­uled for later this year in Cameroon.

Thedis­cus­sion­shigh­lighted why cot­ton remains a sens­it­ive issue in global trade talks, as it is a key live­li­hood crop sup­port­ing mil­lions of small farm­ers in coun­tries across Africa and parts of Asia. At the same time, it remains one of the most heav­ily sub­sid­ised agri­cul­tural com­mod­it­ies, mainly by large pro­du­cing nations, accord­ing to a WTO paper reviewed­by­M­int.

Per the doc­u­ment, India told mem­bers cot­ton remains crit­ical for live­li­hoods and rural devel­op­ment in devel­op­ing and least-developed coun­tries (LDCs), and that pro­gress on the issue has been lim­ited des­pite long-stand­ing man­dates dat­ing back to the Bali and Nairobi min­is­terial decisions. It said India provides duty-free access on all cot­ton tar­iff lines and cov­ers 98.2% of tar­iff lines for imports from LDCs, while call­ing for sharper­dis­cip­line on trade-dis­tort­ing sub­sidies by major pro­du­cers. India is the world's second­largest cot­ton pro­du­cer, account­ing for around a quarter of global out­put, with the crop­grownon­about13mil­lion hec­tares and sup­port­ing nearly 60 mil­lion people.

India’s cot­ton out­put has seen fluc­tu­ations in recent sea­sons. Total cot­ton out­put in the 2024-25 sea­son was 29.4 mil­lion bales (170 kg each), lower than 33.6 mil­lion bales in 2022-23 and 31.1 mil­lion bales in 2021-22. Total cot­ton avail­ab­il­ity, includ­ing open­ing stocks and imports, was at 35.74 mil­lion bales up to the end of the 2024-25 cot­ton sea­son on 30 Septem­ber 2025.

Cot­ton exports for 2024-25 are pegged at 1.8 mil­lion bales, reflect­ing rel­at­ively sub­dued over­seas ship­ments amid tighter local sup­ply and global volat­il­ity, per India Brand Equity Found­a­tion report.

India’s total cot­ton demand was 35.45 mil­lion bales in FY24 and fell mar­gin­ally to 33.60 mil­lion in FY25, accord­ing to the tex­tiles min­istry.

Trade experts said the debate­hase­mergedasal­it­mus test for whether the MC14 can deliver mean­ing­ful out­comes for devel­op­ing and least-developed nations. MC14 is slated for 26- 29 March in Cameroon.