The low production will lead to a shortage of yarn for the textile industry as the country consumes around 15 million bales a year. In Sindh floods, around 2.7 million bales have been lost.
The assessment committee held its first meeting under the chairmanship of Shahid Rashid, Secretary Ministry of Textile Industry, here on Wednesday. Representatives of provincial governments, farmers and other stakeholders took part in the deliberations.
A participant of the meeting told The Express Tribune that out of the estimated production of 12.22 million bales of 170 kg each (2.078 million tons), Punjab would have a crop of 9.75 million bales, Sindh 2.4 million bales, Balochistan 69,000 bales and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 4,000 bales.
According to the secretary of the Ministry of Textile Industry, cotton crop was sown on an area of 65,000 hectares in Sindh, up 12 per cent and 2.5 million hectares in Punjab, up 0.67 per cent.
Before the floods, the crop was going good, disease and pest attacks had decreased and a bumper harvest of around 15 million bales was expected. However, rains and floods in Sindh inundated over 50,000 hectares, around 75 per cent of the cultivated area of the province. Similarly, continuous rains in Punjab affected the crop on an area of about 12,000 hectares.
The committee noted that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa was emerging as a cotton-growing area with a substantial increase in the cultivated area in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank. The textile ministry also expected an increase in cotton cultivation in the province after completion of work on Gomal Zam Dam, which would irrigate 163,000 acres.
A representative of the provincial government asked the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) to provide incentives to the poor growers to help them enhance production. In reply, the association representative said they would provide seeds free of charge to the farmers.
However, representatives of farmers complained about poor seed quality in terms of germination.
Textile Ministry Secretary Shahid Rashid asked the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association to standardise the weight of bales according to international standards.
The committee will meet again on November 23 to review the production estimates.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2011.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ