HYDERABAD: Plan finalized to achieve cotton output target
Bureau Report
HYDERABAD, Feb 25: The Sindh agriculture department has constituted four committees to ensure timely achievement of cultivated area and production target of cotton during the Kharif season of 2006-07.
This was stated by the director-general of the Sindh agriculture extension, Mr Naeem Korejo, in a statement issued here on Friday.
He said the committees would identify and recommend cotton varieties for keeping demonstration plots at the district level.
“They will suggest awareness messages for growers to study mealy bug and reddening problem and suggest control measures for the next season and to review water availability and its release with secretary, irrigation department” he said.
Mr Korejo said that an area of 640,000 hectares and 3.20 million bales for production had been proposed as target in the light of last year’s achievement due to efforts made by the extension field functionaries at the district level. He said the position of good quality cotton seed had been improved and there would be no shortage of cotton seed this year.
He said more than 200,000 maunds good quality seed of various verities i.e. Naib-78, FH-901, CIM-473, CIM-916 would be available with local companies.
He said that these varieties had been tested in the federal seed certification and registration department (FSC&RD) laboratories.
He said that 5,000 maunds cotton seed would also be provided by the Sindh Seed Corporation to the growers.
The department will also lay down demonstration plots of 50 acres each in the cotton growing districts for which government will provide technical expertise and inputs for the plots after the approval of concerned committee headed by Syed Nadeem Shah, a progressive cotton grower.
He said that to ensure the sale of standard and good quality cotton seed in the province, the FSC&RD and the agriculture extension would launch a joint campaign against those seed companies, dealers and traders who were in the habit of selling poor quality and substandard seed including banned varieties.
He said that during a meeting, Mohammad Murad Dharejo, the director of the agriculture farms and major crops development, was told by the director FSC&RD that his department was arranging to impart training to the officers of agriculture extension posted at the taluka level regarding the methods of conducting seed sampling and checking seed quality on the spot to punish the seed companies and dealers, involved in the sale of poor quality and substandard seed.
