MULTAN City News

Reduction in cotton production imminent
From Nadeem Shah
MULTAN: Cotton sowing in Punjab has registered a decline against the set target, fearing a considerable reduction in production as the growers refused cultivating the cash crop mainly because of uncertain market rates and unabated increase in inputs prices that caused huge losses, forcing them to adopt alternate crops, it is learnt from official and growers’ sources.
The initial decline in cotton sowing was more than 5 per cent, agriculture officials said. The overall cotton production target and area under cultivation for the year 2015-16 was set as 15.49 million bales from 7.7 million acres. Punjab is expected to produce 10.5 million bales from 6 million acres, Sindh 4.4 million bales from 1.6 million acres, Balochistan 0.59 million bales from 0.1 million acres and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 0.00152 million bales from 0.001 million acres.
The Agriculture Extension has submitted a fresh report into cotton sowing and production. The report reveals that more than 5 per cent farmers avoided sowing cotton. Thus, the cash crop could be sown over 5.6 million acres instead of 6 million acres target. The report says 94.83 per cent of the sowing area could be achieved this year, which is 0.87 per cent less than 2014-15.
A considerable drop has also been observed in Sindh due to last years’ low prices. Growers prefer maize, red chillies and vegetables as these would give them reasonable financial return in the remote Sindh areas, farmers said.
The initial production target for cotton was 15.1 million bales for 2014-15, however, later the target was revised downward thrice and finally it was set at 13.48 million bales due to multiple issues, including water scarcity, rains/floods, and shortage of certified seeds.
According to agriculture officials, the country mainly depends upon Punjab in cotton production where the set target has been reduced. Moreover, various pests including whitefly and leave curl virus may further damage the produce.
Cotton growers, Malik Ishrat Abbas, from Sikandarabad (Multan) and Malik Kashif from Jhitwala, said they had reduced their cotton acreage by opting to other crops.
“Last year, I had cultivated cotton on 50 acres. This season, I am growing on 22 acres only,” Ishrat said. Similarly, Kashif has sown cotton on 40 acres instead 60 acres last year.
Growers say many farmers are not sowing cotton this year owing to fall in prices, depleting productivity and difficulties in the management of whiteflies and leaf curl virus. The last year’s low prices deter farmers from sowing cotton while the sharp decline in cotton prices in the last two seasons is the main reason for the decreasing area under this crop in Punjab’s southern region. Besides the falling prices, the declining per hectare yield is another disadvantage. Per hectare yield in 2013-14 was 707 kg. It went down to 529 kg last year in Punjab, experts say.
“Waning price, declining yield and increased input costs, including high labour cost...all these factors are discouraging the farmers from cotton cultivation,” experts said.
“Though the Agriculture Department has a target of increasing the area under cotton cultivation in Multan, but we are unable to retain even the last year’s acreage in the district,” Ishrat said.
The sharp decline in cotton price is primarily threatening industry players involved in the growing, ginning and spinning of cotton, businesspersons observed. They said the country was likely to miss cotton sowing target by about 5 to 6 per cent in the current season with a negative impact on textile exports.