October 24, 2001	Wednesday	Shaba'an 6, 1422

KARACHI, Oct 23: Textile mills have expedited cotton purchase following the recent increase of 15 per cent in textile quota and relief in tariff by the European Union.

This was observed at the second meeting of the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee at the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee here on Tuesday.

The meeting was held under the chairmanship of M Shafi Niaz, advisor to the Chief Executive on food, agriculture and livestock.

The committee reviewed the status of the current cotton crop and synthesized the information furnished by the members. It was informed that the current cotton crop was sown over 3.125 million hectares as against the target of 2.56 million and 2.93 million hectares sown last year, showing an increase of 22 per cent over the target and 7 per cent over last year.

In Punjab, the current cotton crop area sown was 7.3 per cent higher than the last year, whereas it declined by 0.7 per cent in Sindh. The area brought under the cotton crop in Balochistan was reported at 0.41 million hectares as against 0.17 million of last year.

The committee was informed that the standing crop was faced with the increasing insect-pest activity, particularly in Punjab where heliothis and sucking pests were the key pests causing damage to the crop in many areas of the cotton belt. The grower members were also critical of the results of the pesticidal applications, which did not help in controlling the pest pressure.

It was also reported that in couple of areas of Punjab the growers had ploughed up their cotton area due to heavy infestation of pest. Such area was, however, insignificant.

A gradual rise in market prices was also noted but there were apprehensions that the benefits of the TCP’s operation were not being passed on to the grower fully.

The committee was also informed that seed cotton arrivals by October 15 this season were of the order of 1.711 million bales as against 2.260 million bales same time last year, showing a shortfall of 24.3 per cent.

The slow arrivals were attributed to the late sowing of crop in many parts of the Sindh and Punjab as well as the holding of the produce by the farmers to some extent in the hope of better prices.

The committee, taking into account the feedback provided by the field functionaries and the private sector agencies concerned, realized that the current crop prospects as witnessed during the early season have been influenced particularly by the insect-pest infestation in Punjab and in parts of Sindh and, therefore, the current crop size may be around 10.80 million bales (Punjab 8.7, Sindh 2.0, Balochistan 0.1) on ex-farm basis.

The meeting was attended TCP chairman, senior officials of federal plant protection department, cotton research institutes, Multan, Faisalabad and Sakrand, Federal Bureau of Statistics and representatives of the provincial agriculture departments and the Crop Reporting Services. Private sector stakeholder were represented by Aptma chairman, PCGA, director KCA and the grower me