Visit of delegates from UNIQLO Production, a Japanese retailing firm to ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai.

A team of delegates from UNIQLO Production, a Japanese retailing company wants to join hands with ICAR-CIRCOT and ICAR-CICR for sourcing quality cotton fibres with scientific interventions of the Institutes from farmer’s field to garment industries. In this connection, delegates from the above company comprising of Mr. Jyothi Kandaswamy, Director along with Ms. Kirti Anil and their Japanese and US Consultants, Mr. Takashi Kuroda, Mr. Mark Stephen Grewal and Mr. Jesse Welborn Curlee visited ICAR-CIRCOT on 20-01-2023. Dr. Y.G. Prasad, Director, ICAR-CICR , along with Dr. A.H. Prakash, Project Coordinator, AICRP on Cotton and Dr. Blaise Desouza, Head I/c, Division of Crop Production joined the meeting online.

In his address, Dr. S.K. Shukla, Director, ICAR-CIRCOT welcomed the delegates and elaborated various research activities of the Institute for improving the cotton quality through clean cotton picking, post-harvest storage of cotton, pre-cleaning, gin machine settings, moisture management etc. He informed that with the collaboration of ICAR-CICR, Institute will join the hands with UNIQLO in their endeavor in sourcing the quality cotton especially ELS variety through sustainable manner.

Mr. Jyothi Kandaswamy informed that the industry is planning to establish model cotton farm near Nagpur and Dharward for the production of ELS cotton and it would like to establish the traceability of the fibres from farm to end product. During the meeting Dr. A.S.M. Raja, Principal Scientist & Head I/c, Quality Evaluation and Improvement Division and Dr. C. Sundaramoorthy, Scientist presented the possible deliverables from the Institute for UNIQLO production. Dr Sujata Saxena, Head I/c, Chemical and Biochemical Processing Division and Dr. N Shanmugam, Head I/c, Mechanical Processing Division participated in the discussion. Dr A K Bharimalla, PI, R-ABI proposed the vote of thanks to delegates. The delegates also visited fibre and fabric testing laboratories in the institute during the visit.