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Cirad

Cotton yield stagnation addressing a common effect of various causes

Fok M.. 2000. In : Gillham Fred M. (ed.). New frontiers in cotton research : Proceedings of the world cotton research conference - 2, Athens, Greece, September 6-12, 1998. Washington : ICAC, p. 38-45. World Cotton Research Conference. 2, 1998-09-06/1998-09-12, Athènes (Grèce).

Yield is stagnating at world level, in developed countries or in developing countries, either under irrigation or not. Yield results from economic optimisation by farmers under existing technical and/or economic factors, analysis of yield stagnation is a tool to help clarify the issues cotton reseach has to address in order to modify the current yield trends. In a limited number of countries, yields actually reached are close to potentiel yields, cotton research has then to cope with the increase of potentiel yields, in particular through better exploitation of favorable interactions between genotypes and technical practices. However, in many countries, actuel yield are still far from potentiel ones, cotton research has then to contribute to reduce this gap. This paper emphasizes the role social scientists should play to clarify the reasons of the existing gap. Reluctance of many cotton producers to using too many costly inputs is also underlined, promoting more effcient use of these inputs is therefore a challenge to address, giving rationale to undertaking more studies to assess, for instance, the mechanism of cotton response to input use.

Mots-clés : gossypium; rendement des cultures; facteur de production; pratique culturale; facteur de rendement; moyen de production agricole; augmentation de rendement

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