New Delhi, June 19 (PTI): Substituting cotton cultivation with soyabean can help prevent farmers’ suicides, a study has said.

Farmers stand to loose due to declining prices of cotton and they would gain by cultivating soyabean that is witnessing an increase in prices, according to a study ‘Cotton to Soyabean: A Way Out of Farmers’ Suicides’ by two professors of the Indian Institute of Management (Indore) S P Parashar and Dipayan Datta Chaudhuri.

“Farmers are committing suicides because they are unable to recover the production cost,” the study said adding, “in such a scenario of declining profitability from cotton cultivation, it is rational to explore the possibility of of substituting cotton by another cash crop soyabean.”

The Minimum Support Price for cotton never covered the total expenses incurred in its production, the study noted while saying that there is ready cash payment for soyabean. Payment for cotton gets staggered, it added.

The study said it is cheaper to cultivate soyabean than cotton.

While there is a stagnation in the area under cotton cultivation, there is an increasing trend for soyabean cultivation in Maharashtra, the study said.

The study says cotton cultivation in India has been plagued by rising cost of cultivation, ineffective pesticides, adulterated seeds and other inputs.