LAHORE. Dec 22 The latest arrivals figure has been placed at 11.747 million bales, but growers and experts expect the final yield to touch 14 million bales.
Any figure above 12.10 million bales, highest cotton crop figure produced in 1991-92 would be a new record and a remarkable boost for the economy that draws heavily on the crop for feeding domestic textile industry and cotton exports that count for above 60 per cent of the country's total exports.
Although the high crop is generally being attributed to increase in area under cultivation, good rates farmers received for their produce last year encouraged growers to put in more investment and labour in the crop.
Area under cotton cultivation is higher by six per cent over last year but there is no major change from the bumper crop of 91-92 when cotton was sown on 2.9 million hectares while cultivation area for the 04-05 crop was 3.1 m hectares.
According to experts and many growers, the main reason for this year's high produce was favourable weather conditions for the crop and extremely low pest attack on cotton. Dry weather automatically countered pests. They also say that weather conditions were, by and large, the same as they were in the bumper crop in 1991-92.
Another factor was increased awareness among farmers towards maintenance of the crop and their attention and emphasis on using the best seed and timely and adequate application of fertilizer and pesticide.
Growers, however, say that the bumper crop may have produced even higher quantity of cotton if water supply was adequate. Fortunately, water was not scarce to the extent of undermining the crop. But both experts and growers feel that water could become a critical factor of greater negative impact in coming years if its availability was not improved.
Growers of the current crop also received better response from the market as Aptma has already picked up 8.2 million tons of lint while the quantity it purchased last year was 5.4 m tons. However, this was not reflected in better rates for farmers.
The government had fixed Rs925 per 40 kg of phutti, but growers in Punjab were lucky if they were given Rs825 while farmers of Sindh were paid even less. Market forces remained antagonistic to farmer's interests, as they have always been.
Farmers may, however, would end up relatively better than they have been in any previous season in recent years because output in the fields was better than average crop. Experts say that yield per acre is likely to have been five to ten kg higher with better availability of water.
Cotton growers have, however, been disappointed by the state's role in the form of purchases by Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) that was directed to act as an intervening player in the market to ensure fair rates for the crop and safeguard grower's interests.
The TCP has been in the market for purchasing lint from ginners and could not use its presence in the market for inducing or persuading ginners to pay farmers the official price while it paid the support price.
Its presence in the market has consequently been a boon for ginners who were paid better rates by TCP than Aptma. The state's good intentions thus remained short of getting translated as a fair deal for the farmers.
The latest consolidated statement of arrivals in factories, issued by the Pakistan Ginners Association, places TCP's purchases at 09.83 million tons while TCP claims that it has contracted over 2.03 million bales from ginneries of Punjab and Sindh and has paid more than Rs5 billion to ginners.
