THE harvest of the country’s most important crop, and the raw material for its largest industry, has just dropped by an alarming quantity. The cotton crop this year was expected to come in just under 15 million bales, whereas the Cotton Ginners Association has confirmed that less than nine million bales have been produced whereas in the same period last year, the figure was 12.6m bales. The drop is a steep one, and although the harvest is still under way and the figure is expected to rise to 10m bales by the time the harvest is complete, the drop will still be amongst the largest in recent years. The bulk of the declines have occurred in southern Punjab, the cotton belt of the country, which has seen output plummet by 39pc, with Sindh only marginally affected.

Given the importance of the crop for our economy, it is imperative to understand the reasons behind this steep fall. The agriculture sector has been hit hard by a variety of factors in recent years, including climate change, collapsing commodity prices and rising input costs. Undoubtedly, this drop is due to a mix of factors, but it is important to determine whether it is a one-off event attributed to the floods or if it represents a consistent degradation in our cotton-producing capacity as market forces turn adverse for the farmer. It is difficult to imagine that floods alone could account for such a steep decline since none of the major deluges of the past five years, including the super flood of 2010, resulted in such large destruction of the cotton crop. Industry is compensating by importing cotton to meet their requirements, but if the declines are the result of a sustained degradation in our cotton crop, Pakistan’s textile industry will also be adversely affected. Fears to this effect are already being felt in industry circles, and the government would be well advised to immediately come up with a credible snapshot of what lies behind the declines.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2015