Cotton crop has registered a fall of 17.4 percent in its production and consequently it contributed in decline of agriculture sector's growth to 0.8 percent against the target of 3.8 percent for the current fiscal year. Sources said that a meeting of the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) was informed on Thursday that there has been a massive decline which led to downward revision in production to 9.86 million bales from 14.37 million bales target set for the current fiscal year.
The decline in cotton production was attributed to shortage of irrigation water, use of low inputs, interior quality of seeds, fertilizer at early stage of crop and reduction of 12 percent in sown area. Wheat crop production increased minimally by 0.5 percent compared to the last year due to wheat diseases such as rust and smut affecting the overall yield as per acre of the crop.
The meeting was informed that production of rice registered a decline of 3.3 percent, whereas production of sugarcane also came down by 19.4 percent over the last year's production. The area sown for rice and sugarcane also decreased by 3.1 percent and 17.9 percent respectively.
The APCC was told that all these factors were responsible for decline in projected growth target of agriculture sector. The government has revised downward agriculture sector's growth target to 0.8 percent for the current fiscal year from 3.8 percent growth target set in the budget, following important crops registered a negative growth of 6.5 percent against the target of 3 percent.
The APCC was further informed that growth of other crops has also been revised downward to 1.9 percent against 3.5 percent target, cotton ginned negative 12.7 percent against 8.9 percent target, growth in fishery was recorded at 0.8 percent against the target of 1.8 percent for the current fiscal year and growth in forestry was registered at 6.5 percent against the target of 8.5 percent for fiscal year 2017-18.
The details presented to the APCC also revealed dismal performance by other sectors as well during the current fiscal year as growth in mining and quarrying was revised downward to negative 1.9 percent from 3.6 percent target.
Large scale manufacturing provisional growth was estimated negative 2 percent against the target of 7.8 percent while provisional growth in services sector was revised downward to 4.7 from 6.5 percent target.