Cotton production estimated at 9.5m bales

It is way below target of 12m bales for current season

ISLAMABAD: The Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) has estimated the country's cotton output at 9.451 million bales against the production target of 12 million bales for the current season.

Cotton Commissioner Dr Khalid Abdullah told APP on Friday that Minister for National Food Security and Research Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar chaired a meeting that assessed the output of current cotton crop in the country.

Presenting an overview of the cotton production scenario, Abdullah told the meeting that cotton output in Punjab was expected to hit 6.671 million bales and in Sindh, it was assessed at 2.68 million bales.

The crop output in Balochistan was estimated at 0.098 million bales, he said, adding that the cotton crop faced an extraordinary rise in temperature in critical stages of development followed by an unexpected rise in temperature by 2-degree Celsius to 5-degree Celsius in September compared to the same month in the past few years.

Heatwave destroys one-third of cotton crop in Pakistan

Such harsh temperature affected the plant nutrition development capability and placed it under stress, hampering fruit development in the late season, he added.

Similarly, he said, irrigation water shortage in Sindh, especially during critical stages of crop development, severe attack of pink bollworm both in Punjab and Sindh, white fly attack and lower cottonseed prices with rising input costs were the key elements impacting cotton production.

Representatives of the Punjab provincial government, Plant Protection Department, Trading Corporation of Pakistan, Federal Seed Certification and Registration Department, Pakistan Central Cotton Committee and All Pakistan Textile Mills Association attended the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2019.

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