15 May 2004	Saturday	24 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

MULTAN, May 14: A meeting to envisage strategy for cotton production and quality improvement is scheduled to be held here on Saturday with Minister of State for Agriculture Sikander Hayat Bosan in the chair.

Federal and provincial agriculture secretaries, official agriculture scientists and representatives of growers, ginners, millers and exporters are likely to attend the meeting to deliberate upon the cotton policy for the year 2004-05.

It is observed in the working paper of the meeting that the higher cotton prices last year will cause both vertical and horizontal expansion in cotton production for the year 2004-05. Quoting International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), the paper says that the area under cotton in Pakistan this year may increase by 5.4 per cent and the country may produce over 11.4m bales of cotton (170kg each).

The Federal Committee on Agriculture in its 80th meeting held on April 3 this year had fixed the cotton sowing and production targets as 3.14m hectares and 10.72m bales, respectively, for the coming cotton season.

To achieve both the cultivation and production targets, the working paper underlines the need to ensure availability of certified cottonseed, quality pesticides and irrigation water. Need to increase awareness among the farming community about integrated pest in order to minimize heavy reliance on costly and hazardous farm chemicals.

For horizontal growth of cotton, the paper suggests encourage its cultivation in Balochistan and Dera Ismail Khan district of NWFP. It is also disclosed that the federal government has allocated funds Rs149.1 million to overcome the problem of what is being labelled by the researchers as Burewala strain of cotton virus and Rs24.1m for the problem of reddening malaise of cotton leaves.