30 April 2005	Saturday	20 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

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LAHORE, April 29: The federal government has decided to increase cotton target to 15 million bales for next year while Punjab’s target has gone up to 11.6 million bales. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cotton Production Plan Committee on Friday. On the recommendation of Punjab, the federal government has also decided to import 200,000 tons of urea fertilizer to meet domestic requirement.

The officials expressed satisfaction over the DAP fertilizer and seed situation in the country. Punjab claimed that it had 55,000 tons of seed against its total requirement of 50,000 tons.

Sindh’s cotton production target has been fixed at 3.25 million bales, Balochistan’s 900,000 bales and the NWFP’s 100,000 bales.

Later, at a seminar on cotton production technology, Federal Minister for Agriculture, Food and Livestock Sikandar Hayat Bosan said the government would also enforce bio-safety laws to ensure increase in cotton production.

All stakeholders, including Punjab Agriculture Minister Arshad Khan Lodhi, cotton commissioner Qadir Bakhsh Baloch, agriculture secretary Fayyaz Bashir, Member Sciences Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Dr Kausar Abdullah Malik and representatives of farmer association, APTMA, Cotton Ginners Association, and governments of Sindh and Balochistan, attended the seminar.

Mr Bosan said a production of 14.2 million bales of cotton was achieved last year, which gave the government confidence to enhance this year’s target to 15 million bales.

The government, he said, would ensure availability of inputs at reasonable rates and provide adequate agricultural credit to the farmers to achieve the target.

He hoped that around eight per cent more area would come under cotton cultivation in the coming Kharif season to achieve the production target.

The minister appreciated the performance of the agriculture department for improving the target of cotton production this year.

He, however, stressed the need for clean picking of cotton to fetch more price. He hoped that the province would keep up the performance.

He said the Cotton Standard Institute and the Ginning Institute had been established in Multan to train farmers and other stakeholders so that $68 million additional income could be earned through cotton export.

The agriculture minister said 6.32 million acres would be brought under cotton cultivation this year to achieve the provincial production target of 11.65 million bales. He emphasised the need to achieve an average production of 25.47 maunds per acre by adopting the recommended technology.

The CGA representative demanded that the import of agriculture machinery should be exempted from tax in the best interest of the farmers and ginners.

The farmers demanded that the government should check black marketeering and ensure adulteration-free pesticides in the market.