MULTAN, Dec 29: The official cotton crop estimates have always been based on an average bale weight of 170kg, says a press release, issued on Monday by the federal ministry of food, agriculture and livestock.

The release says that “certain corners” are giving a wrong impression in the media that, perhaps, the government has reduced the average bale weight of raw cotton. As a matter of fact, the government has already standardized the average bale weight as 170kg, the release adds.

The Minfal statement comments that the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) in its fortnightly cotton arrival figures gives the number of total bales pressed along with their total weight in tonnage, which when calculated shows that average bale weight is less than the standard bale weight of 170kg. This is clearly the violation of government instructions to maintain the standard bale weight, the release said.

It is further stated that the Federal Committee on Agriculture had estimated the cotton crop size for the year 2003-2004 as 10m bales in its meeting held on October 29 last while the Standing Committee on Cotton Crop Assessment in its first meeting of the season on December 22 had maintained the same estimate. Estimates of both the committees are based on the standard bale weight of 170kg, the release affirmed.

It may be added here that when one calculates the average bale weight by dividing the weight of total pressed bales by the total number of bales which have arrived so far at the ginneries across the country, it turns out 163kg instead of the standard bale weight of 170kg.

The controversy over the standard and average bale weight had sparked in 2000-2001, when the Trading Corporation of Pakistan had entered the cotton market as an alternative buyer of the raw cotton as a public sector intervention to stabilize the prices. The corporation had then found the bales underweight and the matter was put up before the then federal commerce minister, Abdul Razak Dawood, who had later on constituted a committee to look into the matter.

Only the federal and provincial agriculture departments had then stressed that the cotton production of that year was based on the standard bale weight of 170kg as rest of the stakeholders, such as, TCP, Aptma, PCGA and KCA had reported to the committee their respective average bale weights less than that of the standard weight. At this, the PCGA had started giving the weight of bales pressed at the ginners in tonnage also.

If one considers the year-wise average bale weight calculated through the PCGA figures then the cotton production of the country for the last four years will have to be revised downward by 0.4m bales to 0.5m bales for each of the year.