RAISING of cotton crop is prone to many risks right from its planting till it is harvested. If the rain is more than the optimum at the time of sowing, the crop has to be re-sown and sometime, depending on the weather conditions, has to be again re-sown.

If in the earlier stages of its growth, there is rain and humidity, pests and diseases appear and the farmer has to resort, even such an earlier stage, to the use of insecticides and pesticides. If the temperature remains favourable, during the further growth of the crop, the plants respond favourably in their growth.

From almost the end of July till even late September, the farmers continue praying for low rainfall, rather dry weather, with low humidity to safeguard the crop against the attack of pests and diseases. Perhaps this is the most crucial period for the crop as flowering, boll formation and their development takes place. This factor has a direct bearing on the yield of the crop.

The crop that generally competes with cotton for land and water is sugar cane. Sugarcane crop is less risky and far less prone to disease and pests. The only thing, which restricts its cultivation, is its high requirements of water, which may be from 33 to 40 per cent more, depending on the soil and other local conditions. The problem, however, arises when the crop is to be sold to sugar mills.

The mills delay crushing, create problems when ‘indents’ are issued, prolonged delivery time at the mill, defective weighing and eventually inordinate delay in making payments, which extends not over weeks but over months and even may take more than a year.

The farmer weighs all the factors before taking a decision as to which of the two crops should be planted and how much weightage should be given to each.

Now let us look at the cotton crop raised in 2004. This article will restrict mainly to the Punjab as it has not been possible to obtain credible information about Sindh crop on various factors that influenced the production.

The major factor in cotton production is that its production in 2004-05 reached an unprecedented height of 14.6 million bales against 10.1 million bales in the previous year. This is an increase of about 46 per cent.

This has also broken the earlier record of 12.8 million bales attained in 1991-92. So one is naturally interested to know as to what factors have played their role and to what extent, and whether these can be repeated in the following year(s) for which the target has, under the orders of the prime minister, been raised to 15 million bales against the target of about 12 million bales set earlier by the Federal Agricultural Committee (FAC) presided over by the Federal Minister of Agriculture where all the provinces participated.

The area under cotton in 04-05 increased by 7.8 per cent over the previous year; it increased by about 12 per cent in Sindh and by seven per cent in the Punjab. This happened because the farmers received very lucrative price of their crop in the previous year and also because the announcement of support price, was made well in time, before sowing. Also the farmers had continuing problems with the sugar mills, which made them to plant less area to sugarcane and divert it, where possible, to cotton.

Though the government wishes that the entire cotton crop should be sown with certified seed, it has never so happened. However, it is reported that the use of certified seed for the 2004-05 crop was about 10-11 per cent higher than in the earlier year. But at best it must have covered not more than fourth of the area. Anyway, this should have had some impact on the yield per acre.

Because the temperature during March, April and even in the beginning of May remained favourable for the planting of the crop, most of the sowing were completed well in time i.e. before the middle of June and farmers did not have to re-plant the crop. The germination was good and temperature during March to May were such that the crop remained almost unaffected by cotton pests.

Similarly, the low or no rainfall from July to September in most of the cotton growing areas and low level of humidity during these months also helped the crop to remain safe from the attack of pests and diseases.

This was not the case in the previous year because due to frequent rains, the infestation of pests increased very rapidly and the right type and quality of pesticides were not readily available and the prices charged by the traders were unaffordable to many cultivators.

Bollworm attack was reported to be quite high and dampened the ultimate productivity of the crop. Unlike the year 2003-04, there was no complaint this year about the non-availability and the quality of the pesticides.

Moreover, because of low rainfall and temperature factor, the weed infestation remained quite low, a favourable factor for good growth of crop. Another important factor which impacted favourably on the yield per acre was the difference between the day and night temperature which helped in healthy growth of the plants.

With the above prevailing situation, particularly of weather at the time of planting, flowering and boll formation, the plants remained very healthy and produced large number of bolls as compared to those of last year. According to one estimate, the number of bolls per plant during 2004-05 was about 25 per cent more than recorded in the previous year. Not only this, but the weight of each boll was also higher by about 9-10 per cent more. So these two factors, i.e., the number and the weight of bolls must have contributed substantially to the yield per acre.

Another important factor which can be taken into account is the ginning-out-turn (GoT) i.e. the percentage of lint obtained from seed cotton (phutti) after it is ginned. According to the available information, the GoT of the 2004-05 crop was about three per cent higher than obtained from 2003-04 crop.

From the foregoing, one can conclude that the increase in cotton area was mainly due to the fact that

(a) farmers received very lucrative prices for their 2003-04 crops, much higher than the support price, and

(b) the support price for 2004-05 crop was increased by Rs25 per 40 kg of phutti and announced well in time before sowing. However, the major factors that contributed to such a high rise in production were the favourable weather conditions at the time of sowing which gave good germination, no re-sowing of crop, practically no incidence of pest attack in the early growth of the crop, as well as, at the time of flowering and boll formation; increase in the number and weight of bolls, low weeding incidence, favourable difference between day and night temperatures, availability of pesticides on time and in quality and higher ginning-out-turn.

The FAC presided over by the federal minister of agriculture had in its earlier meeting decided the cotton production target for 2005-06 crop to be 12 million bales. But later on under the directives of presumably the Prime Minister, revised it to 15 million bales. In order to make this target achievable, the Government has raised the support price to Rs975 per 40 kg from Rs925 and that it was announced well in time allowing the farmers to decide their sowing plans in time.

But it is hoped that all those conditions, which helped the healthy growth of the crop in the previous year, particularly of climate, both in terms of rainfall and temperature, including day and night ones, remain favourable during the growing period of 05-06 crop, and no serious out-break of pests and diseases is experienced. If so, then certainly, it would help reach the set target which would help in the attainment of the anticipated agriculture growth rate.