LAHORE: The cotton sowing season in Punjab got terminated at 3.16 million acre against the target of four million acre this year, thus achieving only 77.50 per cent of what it had planned for a year during which it was trying to revive the cotton crop.

According to the agriculture department officials, though a target of four million acre was set, it never expected to fully achieve it. “What we were hoping for was 3.5 million acre,” says one such official. However, even that could not be achieved and sowing ended at 3.16 million acre, or 88.57 per cent of even those lowered expectations.

The Punjab Crop Reporting Service officials, on their part, had a target of 3.3 million acre, half a million acre less than last year’s 3.8 million acre, in mind where sowing started. “But the slide has been steeper than what all officials’ accounts could count. The situation looks ominous now as far as the cotton revival efforts are concerned,” conceded officials of both Agriculture Department and Crop Reporting Service.

Cotton chaos starts right from the seed. According to the official data, only 30 per cent cotton area is currently covered by certified seed and the rest 70 per cent with seeds of unknown parentage. Yet another layer of confusion is added by approved and unapproved varieties and the ratio is 53 to 47 per cent. “What miracle one can expect with this kind of seed chaos in the field,” wonders an official of the Federal Seed Certification Department.

Explaining the failure, an official says that what cotton planners need to realise is that they are dealing with a live and evolving situation when they plan for any crop, cotton included. If the competing crops fair better, no amount of official speeches can save it. “The officials, beginning from top to bottom, think, rather insist, that future of Pakistan agriculture is linked to cotton. But farmers don’t think so and they are the one making decisions, which are linked to money,” Parvez Jammu, a former cotton grower in Pakpattan area, said.

Two crops competing cotton in our area are maize and rice, both of them have almost replaced cotton in the last one decade because of the profitability factor. It is also true for the adjoining districts as well. The maize economics tells the replacement story. Its current price is Rs1,400 per maund and its average yield, with hybrid seed, is over 100 maunds. Now compare it with totally unpredictable rate and yield of cotton. The net and assured income of a maize farmer is Rs140,000 per cent, for a four-month period – compared to less than Rs100,000 for cotton in ideal circumstances and the crop locks farmers resources for more than eight months. “That is why the maize acreage has jumped from 2.6 million acre in 2015-16 to the current seven million acre. Where have this additional little less than five million acre come from? Certainly from the losing crops like cotton. I used to grow cotton over 500 acre, not even a single acre now, he claims and adds: “Rice in Punjab was 3.5 million acre crop till only five years ago, which now hogs 5.3 million acre. Cotton loss is by default and it does not have financial vitality to fight its way back.”

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2021