5-7 percent cotton crop damaged: PCGA

Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association's acting chairman Shehzad Ali Khan has said that the current widespread rains in the country have damaged almost 5 to 7 percent of total size of the anticipated cotton crop 2011-12. He said that the current devastating rains have already damaged the production of 300,000 bales of the standing cotton in Sindh and around production of 350,000 bales of standing crop in Punjab cotton belt.
"The Sindh production is estimated around 4.2 million bales in the 2011-12 crop season while Punjab production is estimated around 9.8 million bales during the current crop season 2011-12," he added. He said that unless there was no humidity more than 65 percent after rains, the crop would not face any further production loss. Although the rain has washed away virus and lessened density of mealy bug attack in districts Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin, Larkana, Shikarpur, Khairpur, Naukot, Khipro and adjoining areas but the heavy downpour made much damage to the crop, he said. Similarly, the rain wreaked havoc on the standing crop in Punjab including Vehari, Sadiqabad, Rajanpur, Haroonabad, Muridwala, Okara and parts of Multan, he added.
He said the wet conditions in flooded cotton areas did not allow the growers to spray their cotton crops in time. Shehzad said humidity above 70 percent and bright sun above 38-40 after rains usually damage the flowering of the crop.
The ideal condition for good crop is dry weather conducive for the cotton plant. Moderate humidity with mild warm condition for another next three to four days after rains is good. He said recent rains have washed away white fly and American worm (sundi) besides mealy bug, which was a threat and danger to crop in upper Punjab and Sindh areas. The federal government set the target of 14.2 million cotton bales for the crop season 2011-12.
He said after rains there was possibility around 20 percent crop in Sindh and Punjab growing areas remained under direct threat of a number of pests and diseases. The cotton crop, cultivated on targeted areas of 3.2 million hectares, was confronting the cotton leaf curl virus (CLCV) and it had spread across the cotton belt in Punjab and Sindh provinces. Around 96 percent of the total cultivation in the country is Bt type cotton and nearly 97 percent of this type is cultivated in Sindh and about 95 percent is cultivated in Punjab. "Besides others, the cotton crop scrap percentage stands around 20 percent every crop season (2003-2011) due to wrong estimation and improper time disbursement process of agri-credit to the growers," he said.
He said the cotton sector was facing around 35 percent of the total 65 percent credit demand and supply gap in the current fiscal year 2011-12. Institutional agriculture credit demand and supply gap has widened by 62 percent (Rs 430 billion) as the demand has been estimated at Rs 685 billion.
He said growing demand and slow upward moving pace of agriculture credit remained one of the main reasons behind the low production of crops especially in cotton. Shehzad said, "We are still facing brunt of poor policy, agriculture credit demand estimated for cotton sector alone at national level was 70 percent of the total target."
He said cotton, which is backbone of textile sector and 65 percent of the total export earning of the country faced more than 50 percent of the total agriculture credit shortfall during 2003-2004 to 2009-10. "The financial managers and agriculture planners at the federal ministries are responsible for poor supply of seed, insecticides, fertiliser and other inputs to cotton sector as no one could streamline the timely supply of credit to growers."