Cotton production target revised to 12.2m bales

Pakistan has revised its annual cotton production target from 15 million bales to 12.2 million bales; from an under cultivation acreage of 3.2 million hectares due to the devastating rains and floods in Sindh province during the current year.
An official source said, the first assessment of the crop was made at the meeting of the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee which was chaired by the Secretary Ministry of Textiles Shahid Rashid, and attended by representatives of the provincial governments, farmers, and industry associations.
After a detailed deliberation, the committee reached a consensus on cotton production figure of 12.2 million bales, with each bale having an average weight of 170 kg. The government had earlier set a target of 15 million bales for this season. The cotton crop production had hovered around 12 million bales for the last few years even though the local textile sector demand has risen to 16 million bales annually. They have been importing additional cotton from India and Central Asian states.
The government is working on improving local cotton seed production on the international lines to meet the rising domestic requirements. The focus is on increasing per acre yield of cotton. APTMA has already offered to finance local research institutions for enhancing the country’s annual cotton output from 11 million bales to over 16 million bales, an official source said.
The major hurdle in the enhancement of cotton output was low fund availability for the research institutions. APTMA has offered to finance research on equity basis with public sector to enhance the cotton production. Pakistan is importing nearly 2 million bales every year to meet the requirements of the local industry.
It is important to mention that the defunct Agriculture Ministry had drawn a cotton vision in 2006 that envisaged increasing the domestic cotton production to 20 million bales by 2015. The programme failed to take off as the required additional financing for the cotton research institutions was not provided by the government. The ministry proposed another plan to introduce BT cotton with the help of US giant Monsanto but the programme was on the hold as the US firm was demanding royalties, estimated to be over Rs20 billion per annum from the government. However there were no intellectual property rights (IPR) legislation in the country. The legislation drafted by the ministry, on agriculture related IPRs, the Plant Breeders Rights Act is in limbo since 1999 when its bill was introduced in the parliament for approval.
The meeting directed the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) to standardise the weight of bales according to international standards. The committee also decided to review the projected estimates of cotton production in its next meeting on November 23, 2011. The meeting was informed that cotton was sown on an acreage of 0.65 million hectares in Sindh and 2.5 million hectares in Punjab. Moreover, this year cotton crop was planted on 0.67 per cent and 12.25 per cent above the targets area set for Punjab and Sindh province, respectively. Overall the crop position remained in a good position, as the Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) incidence and pest attack was low as compared to the last year. A bumper crop of about 15 million bales was expected, but rains and floods in Sindh damaged over 50,000 hectares which is more than 75 per cent of cotton cultivated area of the province. Similarly, consistent rains in Punjab resulted in shedding of flowers and immature fruiting bodies on an area of about 12,000 hectares.
The meeting was informed that Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa is emerging as a cotton growing area and a substantial increase in the cotton cultivated area in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank has been reported. Whereas, this year over 100 acres of cotton was also planted in District Sawabi. The Textile Ministry also expected an increasing trend of cotton cultivation in the province after the commencement of Gomal Zam irrigation project which will irrigate 163,000 acres. The KP government asked APTMA to provide incentives to the poor growers in the province to enhance cotton production. APTMA representative assured that they were ready to provide free of cost seed to the growers.