Floods destroy about 1.5 million cotton bales

ISLAMABAD: The recent spell of monsoon rains which caused flash floods in Sindh province has badly affected the standing crops including cotton, sugarcane, onion and vegetables of different varsities.

In Sindh, the flash floods have destroyed standing crop of cotton over 200,000 acres of land and damaged approximately 1 million to 1.5 million bales, said Cotton Development Commissioner, Khalid Abdullah.

Talking to APP here on Tuesday, the Commissioner said that according to initial estimates, at least 40 percent of cotton crop has been damaged in Sindh due to torrential rains, causing floods in lower parts of cotton belt.

However, he said that final data of the losses would be available only after receding the standing water in the fields and officials of the food department in collaboration with revenue department would assess the volume of actual losses in the province, he added.

He further informed that the floods hit Tharparkar, Hyderabad, Badin, Dadu, Tando Muhammad Khan and Thatta districts where according to market sources only about 500,000 bales have reached the market while rest of cotton was in the field.

Khalid Abdullah said that Sindh was expecting to harvest about 4.5 million cotton bales this year as cultivation area under cotton had increased by 30 to 40 percent during current sowing season in different areas like Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Badin.

The crop output likely to fall by 1 million to 1.5 million bales this year in the province as the Federal Ministry for Food and Agricultural had set the target to produce about 15 million bales for cotton during current financial year (2011-12), he added.

Cotton Commissioner informed that a comprehensive strategy would evolve to avoid any insect attack like white flies, curl leaf cotton virus (CLCV) to prevent further crop damage.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011