ICAR-CIRCOT Mumbai organized training program on ‘Post-harvest handling, quality evaluation and value addition to cotton & its by-produce’ under SCSP scheme

ICAR-CIRCOT Mumbai has organized a 3-day training on “Post-Harvest Handling, Quality Evaluation & Value Addition to Cotton & it’s By-Produce” during 11-13th March 2026 under the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) scheme of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. This was a specialized training program conducted for scheduled caste farmers to upgrade their knowledge, skills, and expertise in post-harvest processing of cotton and value addition to its by-produce. This training was attended by a total 16 farmers. The participants were from the nearby villages of Jalna district in Maharashtra. This training programme consisted of lectures, discussions, pilot plant visits and demonstrations of double roller gin, high volume instrument, rotor spinning, and cone winding machine, etc. Through the lectures different topics were focused viz. cotton ginning, quality parameters, economics of cotton processing and trade, marketing and commercial aspects for clean cotton picking, handling, transportation and storage, cotton classing and grading practices, trash estimation, fibre quality index, spinning, post-harvest utilization of cotton biomass, and entrepreneurship opportunities for enhanced income and sustainable livelihood.

The programme ended with the valedictory session on 13th March, chaired by Dr. S. K. Shukla, Director, ICAR-CIRCOT Mumbai. The feedback from the farmers was taken, and they were guided with words of motivation by Dr. S. K. Shukla, Dr. A.S.M. Raja (Head, QEID), and Dr. A.K. Bharimalla (Nodal officer SCSP). The training completion certificates were distributed to the farmers.