Policy drift leaves Pakistan's cotton sector searching for revival

Pakistan’s agriculture sector, particularly the cotton industry, is facing significant challenges, with concerns that key stakeholders, including the public, the government and national institutions, lack adequate visibility into administrative processes.

Critics argue that the bureaucracy, which is expected to facilitate informed decision-making, has not always ensured sufficient transparency and effective communication in the sector.

A national institution, the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC), is facing a host of challenges including an acute shortage of staff, 564 vacant posts out of a total of 752 posts (only 26% working staff), five positions of grade 20 officers lying vacant for over a decade, promotions and recruitment held in abeyance for around 15 years, an official source revealed on the condition of anonymity.

Moreover, according to the official, the financial crisis persists due to suspension of salaries and pensions at the PCCC from July 2025 to April 2026, more than Rs2 billion outstanding dues of the textile sector stuck on account of weak recovery system by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFSR), cotton cess at Rs50 per bale since 2012 despite multiple increases in operational costs.

When it comes to administrative imbalances, there is no permanent vice president of the PCCC, and non-payment of due ad hoc relief for several years, the official said.

“The flaws in planning and policy are also procrastinating merger of the PCCC into the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) despite the 18-month-old government’s approval,” they said.

Pakistan’s textile sector calls for 15 million bales per annum. Last year, 7 million bales worth $2.5 billion were imported from Brazil and USA. This year, the country also aims to import another 7 million bales as the country may be able to produce hardly 6 million bales.

Pakistan has set a target of cultivating cotton on 5 million acres this year, with a production target of approximately 9.6 million bales. According to the latest report of the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA), 785,926 bales arrived at ginning factories across the country by July 31, 2026.

Pakistan has achieved bumper cotton crops on three occasions in its history: 12.8 million bales in 1991-92, 14.8 million bales in 2004-05, and 14.0 million bales in 2014-15.

According to the PCGA report, Pakistan produced approximately 5.6 million bales of cotton during the 2025-26 season. Based on the current crop situation, this year’s cotton production is also expected to remain in the 5.5-6.0 million bale range.

The legal process to merge the PCCC into PARC is complete as the Ministry of Law urged the Ministry of National Food Security and Research to vet it in the National Assembly and Senate.

According to experts, the cotton sector cannot revive until the national cotton policy is formed as negative repercussions will continue including reputational risk to the government, adverse impact on the national economy, and the PCCC going into fiasco. The cabinet meeting has not been called for the merger of the PCCC for several months.

The PCCC is the biggest national cotton institution with an annual budget of Rs800 million, while Punjab cotton research department has the annual budget of Rs7–8 billion. After the 18th amendment, the agriculture subject comes under the province.

Speaking to Business Recorder, former vice president of PCCC Dr Yusuf Zafar said the cabinet special committee for rightsizing and restructuring of federal government made decision of merger of the PCCC with PARC in January 2025. Meanwhile, the other committee on special crops headed by Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Ishaq Dar gave verbal instructions to expedite this process by Presidential Ordinance and complete the process in Parliament in a permissible duration of three months.

In a later meeting in October 2025 on cotton crop, the DPM asked the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) to take over PCCC. The former presented a proposal of formation of independent cotton board under the Prime Minister. Even the revised minutes were issued by the MNFSR. No such board was announced by federal cabinet as summary had not been moved by the ministry concerned. The indecisiveness and lack of clarity on part of federal government is a hurdle in solving chronic issues of the PCCC, according to Zafar.

“The bad governance and lack of clear roadmap on part of the federal government are two main reasons for the declining cotton production in the country. The Export Facilitation Scheme (EFS) allowed duty free import of raw cotton, and yarn resulted in huge dumping by China and collapse of local looms and spinning mills.

“Some textile houses with a narrow focus on short-term gains are pushing decision makers on liberal cotton imports which last year touched nearly $3 billion. The seed mantra which our governing elites always recite in any cotton meeting is grossly misplaced and overly emphasised.

“Not a single issue, but there is a need to transform whole cotton value chain from farms to fashion – F2F. The inclusion of farmers, researchers, ginners, traders and textile houses should be engaged for a meaningful strategic implementation plan to achieve at least 15 million bales of quality cotton in immediate term. Strong political will is vital for the success of such programme,” he said.

Veteran progressive farmer Chaudhry Jawaid Riaz said, “The bureaucracy is mainly responsible for this mess as the research institution is falling victim to the system collapse where officers and staff are being deprived of salaries-cum-pensions and other facilities.”

Speaking about solutions to the problems, he said until the clear-cut cotton policy was constituted, the country couldn’t improve cotton yield to meet the demand of the local textile sector. He said quick initiatives should be taken to safeguard the cotton sector as soon after wheat cultivation, cotton should grow, research should be conducted as per climate change; calling for crop zooming aimed to protect white gold (cotton) – cotton belt of south Punjab has been converted into sugarcane zone as sugar mills were established there.

He further pleaded for quality cotton seed after research aimed to increase cotton yield; reducing input cost (cost of production) by giving subsidy on fertilisers; fixing support price to benefit growers so that growers may secure fair price, earn and invest in the coming crops.