July 28, 2006	Friday	Rajab 1, 1427

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VEHARI, July 27: With bitter memories of the last year cotton crop failure in the district still fresh, ‘severe’ pest attack this year has alarmed growers.

Contacts with farmers revealed that Vehari, Burewala, Mailsi, Tibba Sultanpur, Machiwal, Jalla Jeem, Luddan and other adjoining areas of the district had come under the attack of whitefly, cotton leaf curl virus (CLCV) and mili bug.

The local agriculture department has failed to control or make any plan to combat the virus attack despite the fact that such an attack had played havoc with the crop in the district last year.

“The damage caused by the pest is much higher than the previous year,” said Murad Ali from Machiwal area.

According to him and some other farmers, substandard and ineffective pesticides, lack of guidance from agriculture experts and wet conditions are the major causes of the pest attack. The insect growth increased after the last week rain, they believed.

Official sources said even the ‘well-kept’ seed-multiplication farms of the agriculture department had been affected.

After the last year damage, the Punjab agriculture department had reportedly formed a committee to find a durable solution to the problem but local farmers were yet to hear any advice or solution, if any.

Fearing ‘complete’ destruction by whitefly, mili bug, and cotton leaf curl (CLCV), growers lashed out at the agriculture department whose pest scouting staff did not visit their fields regularly to warn them in time.

Farmers belonging to Thingi area said that last year they used pesticides on the recommendation of department officials but could not stop the damage for either the advice was wrong or the pesticides were substandard.

Agriculture deputy district officer Safder Ali said his department had evolved a strategy to fight the pest attack.

He said the department had set up 222 field schools throughout the district where training was being given to farmers from 9am to 1pm daily.

Farmers, he advised, should use quality pesticides after due consultation with agriculture experts.

Sarwer, a farmer of Chak 22/WB, claimed that no farmers’ training school existed anywhere in the district.

Another agriculture official, Muhammad Tariq, admitted that whitefly and mili bug attack was severe but the CLCV attack was confined only to few areas of the Mailsi sub-division.

He claimed that the CLCV attack was not so dangerous and still under control. He, however, admitted that its presence was severer than the previous year.

The Vehari district, producing more than 1.6 million cotton bales annually, may see a significant downfall this year.

Growers urged the government to ensure supply of quality pesticides against easy credit so that they could save their produce.