January 30, 2003	Thursday	Ziqa’ad 26,1423

ISLAMABAD, Jan 29: The Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture & Livestock, Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind, has stressed the need of raising the per hectare yield of cotton and asked for using good quality cotton seed in that regard.

Presiding over Cotton Crop Assessment Committee meeting he said high yielding cotton varieties, suiting agro climatic conditions for new areas particularly in Balochistan and NWFP, should be evolved.

The meeting was attended by Sikandar Hayat Bosan, Minister of State for Food, Agriculture & Livestock, secretary, MINFAL, Shafqat Ezdi Shah, chairman, Trading Corporation of Pakistan, cotton commissioner, vice president, Pakistan Central Cotton Committee, provincial agriculture secretary, Punjab, the director general, agriculture, Sindh, vice chairman, Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) and representatives of KCA, Aptma and the growers.

The committee expressed satisfaction over the current crop arrival trend and noted that there was no abnormal situation with regard to weather and insect pest.

The committee noted that the growers were able to get a reasonably good price for their produce. It was realized that while the cotton area sown this year had declined by 6.3 per cent, the per acre yield was comparatively better than last year.

According to the ginners, the ginning turnover this season was much better and other fibre properties had also shown improvement.

According to the PCGA, the seed cotton arrivals as on January 15, 2003 were of the order of 9.191 million bales (Punjab 7.105, Sindh 2.086 bales) as against last year’s corresponding date arrivals of 8.424 million bales (Punjab 6.394, Sindh 2.030 bales), thereby showing an increase of 9.11 per cent (Punjab 11.12 per cent, Sindh 2.76 per cent).

The meeting was informed that possible quantum yet to reach the ginneries during the rest of the season and hoped to maintain the current season’s cotton production at 10.1 million bales ex- farm.