Floods: 2.7m cotton bales destroyed in Sindh

ISLAMABAD: About 2.7 million cotton bales worth Rs3.5 billion were destroyed recently, as 23 cotton-growing districts of the province were affected by the torrential rains, Cotton Development Commissioner Khalid Abdullah told APP here on Wednesday. “Seven out of the 23 cotton-growing districts in the province yield 80 per cent of the total crop production. About 74 per cent of the total output was damaged due to the recent floods in the province,” Abdullah said. “The recent damage is worse than that of the last year,” he added. He said that cotton crops in Punjab were also affected, adding that about 50,000 acres of the standing cotton crops were damaged due to the recent rains. He said that the authorities concerned had set the production target of 15 million cotton bales for 2011-12.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2011.