Around the world of cotton issues in ten months: a guide for navigation

Résumé en anglais
Cotton sectors are facing many issues which are quite well reported by online newspapers. Many issues are internal to the running of cotton sectors. They are little related to the international issue of market distortion, pertaining to the "cotton file" of the WTO. A number of issues impeding the development of cotton sectors are common to many countries. The lack of supply of basic services is not specific to Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Cotton is generally suffering from high production cost, with or without recurring to transgenic varieties. This global observation should lead us to question the dominating production mode.

It is amazing to find that many countries are facing serious seed issue in many forms. In some countries, this seed issue has been exacerbated after the adoption of transgenic varieties. Considering the very wide range of issues, a very wide range of possible responses is mobilized, mainly from the governments. There might be reactions monitored by private operators, but their scopes and their scales are very limited. Some measures are very innovative or imaginative, they are observed in emerging countries like China, Brazil and India, in fact in countries which can afford the policies they decide on.