May 9, 2006	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1427

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LAHORE, May 8: Farmers on Monday asked the provincial government to delay curtailing of water supply to growers for a few weeks in view of cotton sowing which is underway in the province. Talking to Dawn, the growers claimed that the Punjab government had calculated about 20 per cent water shortage during the early Kharif season, and now it started transferring the burden to farmers by curtailing their water share. That could prove lethal for the cotton crop at sowing stage, they said, and demanded that the government should rearrange its distribution priorities.

The Punjab government, they suggested, would do better if it delayed transferring shortage to the cotton growers for a few weeks. They said the government should draw maximum water now to facilitate sowing, and reduce the supply later. They said once sowing got hampered by the shortage, no amount of rain or underground water could compensate the loss.

The federal government has fixed the cotton cultivation target of 2.56 million hector for Punjab to achieve a yield of 10.58 million bails, says an official of the Farmers Associate Pakistan (FAP) and a cotton grower. At this stage, hardly two per cent sowing had been completed and it was being delayed only because of water shortage, he said and added that otherwise cotton should have ideally been sown by the first week of May.

The Punjab would not be able to meet its huge cotton target of acreage and yield if sowing suffered on any account, especially water and pesticides, he said. The Indus River System Authority was on the record denying any water shortage and claiming it would provide water to every province as per its agriculture needs, whereas the Punjab claimed to be suffering 20 per cent shortage and based its planning on the same, he said, wondering how technical people could differ by 20 per cent in their calculation of water availability?

Neither Punjab nor Irsa was ready to explain this difference in their respective calculations, but farmers had to ultimately suffer the consequences, he lamented.

It would not only be water that would be threatening cotton crop, but pesticides’ availability was also uncertain, Sultan Siddiqi of Rahim Yar Khan said. Though officials say that there is a substantial carry over of pesticides in the market, but seven big importers have also suspended imports leaving the market uncertain. The government should move to end this uncertainty before the sowing ends, he suggested.

He said the government should also try to encourage use of BT cotton so that it could get rid of pesticides problems on permanent basis. The authorities concerned had still not come with bio-laws for the BT cotton, he said. In many countries the BT cotton had gained currency because it, being disease resistant, saved pesticides cost and caused healthy yield.

Meanwhile, he said, the government must ask the officials concerned to solve the issue as quickly as possible because it would send right message to farmers and help achieve target of acreage and yield for Punjab and the country.