The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) in collaboration with the Provincial Agriculture Departments and the private sector stakeholders has developed a comprehensive cotton production strategy prior to the commencement of the season.
According to official sources, adequate availability of high yielding varieties seed was ensured for sowing purposes, which helped the growers to exceed the targeted area by 2.86 percent in Punjab and by one percent in Sindh.
The irrigation water also remained adequately available this year and the availability of urea fertilisers during Kharif 2005 was reported at 2,656 million tonnes as against the estimated requirement of 2.555 million tonnes.
Among various fertilisers, 949,000 tonnes of DAP were reported to be available against the requirement of 643,000 tonnes, he said adding, this had thus helped stabilising the fertiliser prices. The list of pesticides, which can be imported under the generic scheme, was also expanded to 120 pesticides, which helped in reducing the prices to the advantage of the growers.
According to official field reports regarding the standing cotton crop furnished by the Federal and provincial agencies there has so far been no flare up of any insect pests or the Cotton Leaf Curl Virus and the situation is well under control.
This season the cotton sowing on ridges has increased and the Provincial government has persuaded the farmers to give due attention to better crop management practices, weed control and particularly the integrated pest management. The growth and development of the crop was satisfactory throughout the cotton belt, source concluded.
Survey reports mentioned that the crop in most of the area of Punjab was at flowering and fruiting stages, cotton seed arrivals from the early sown areas had started and the growers were reportedly getting a price above the intervention price of Rs 975/- per 40 kgs fixed by the government.
The fresh assessment of cotton crop size will soon be made by the cotton Crop Assessment Committee, which is likely to meet during the first week of September 2005.