LAHORE: Cotton growers are expected to harvest a bumper crop of 13.54 million bales (each weighing 170kg) this year in spite of devastating floods in Punjab.

“The next harvest could have been even better had floods in southern, cotton growing areas of Punjab not wiped out the crop on 86,000 acres of land in Punjab,” Pakistan Cotton Commissioner Khalid Abdullah told Dawn after a meeting of the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) on Wednesday from Islamabad.

He said the committee had estimated the cotton crop loss to be in the range of 0.4 million bales because of flooding in Multan, Muzafargarh, Lodhran, etc.

The higher output will funnel around Rs350 billion in the rural economy despite a steep fall in the fibre prices to Rs5,400-5,500 per maund (37.3kg) since January.

If the output is converted into lighter bales of 155kg each, the crop size will exceed 15.5 million bales at the end of the harvest.

The Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) website shows a hefty 12.3 per cent increase to 4.14 million bales (of 155kg each) in cotton arrivals by the end of last month from 3.68 million bales a year ago. Of these, 3.32 million bales were lifted by the textile industry and 149,520 by the exporters.

The PCGA data shows an increase of 32.5 per cent jump in arrivals from Punjab and 1.6 per cent plunge in arrivals from Sindh, including Balochistan.

Earlier this month, the government fixed the phutti (seed cotton) price at Rs3,000 per maund and ordered the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to lift one million bales in order to lift pressure brought on domestic prices by the falling international rates.

The decision has drawn a widespread criticism from the textile manufacturers who have termed it a “political gimmick” that will benefit a few powerful ginners close to ruling party’s ministers and legislators at best and make country’s textile exports dearer at worst. The decision is unlikely to benefit the growers as the TCP buys ginned cotton and not phutti as the Indian government does to help its farmers.

In spite of substantial crop size with domestic spinning industry’s consumption to be in the vicinity of 16 million bales, fears prevail that the spinners will not be able to lift the entire crop because of severe energy crunch in Punjab.

“If the government wants to help the cotton farmers, it should reset its priorities and provide gas and electricity to the factories without interruption,” former All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma-Punjab) chairman Shahzad Ali Khan told this reporter.

“Unless the factory-owners get gas and electricity 24 hours a day throughout the year for optimal capacity utilisation, they are not going to lift the crop that may depress the prices further.”

Currently, the large-scale textile industry is getting gas for eight hours a day and power 14 hours a day.

The energy shortages have led to closure of 30 per cent yarn-making capacity. The industry estimates a loss of $2.5 billion in exports because of the drop in production across the entire textile chain in Punjab because of the rising energy crunch.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2014