THE State Bank of Pakistan placed losses due to contaminated cotton at $1.4 billion a year in its first quarterly report for fiscal year 2005. But according to sources within the national textile industry, these losses were about $3 billion.

However, many experts and professionals are certain that the country squanders about $5 billion every year because much of its cotton, rated as the best silver fibre in the world, is contaminated.

There is no dearth of exhortations to farmers from officials and politicians managing the sector to produce contamination free cotton. Not much time passes before the federal ministry for food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal) urges growers to concentrate on improving the quality of their produce.

The director, General Agriculture Research, told participants of a seminar in Faisalabad the other day that contamination free cotton could substantially increase Pakistan’s foreign exchange earnings.

Planners in the government are apparently conscious of the importance of contamination free cotton and the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) is reported to have approved a ‘clean cotton production plan,’ along with financial incentives proposed by the ministerial committee on textile industry. The ECC constituted another committee to ‘finalize modus operandi for the operation.’

This is not the first time a positive message has been communicated to the sector to improve the quality of cotton, but nothing practical has been accomplished in this regard so far. Incentives have been promised in the past, too, but nothing concrete has been done up till now. In fact, if anything, things have been moving in the wrong direction.

The Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) was introduced to the sector to intervene on behalf of farmers to ensure fair and equitable reward for their labour and to promote untainted cotton. The TCP purchased a certain quantity of cotton but has not been able to pay dues to ginners and the few farmers from whom it got cotton, because the textile ministry has not released funds for payments.

As three federal ministries are involved, there are more chances of a prolonged wait for payments than clearance of dues in the near future. The ministries represent and protect different interests of the components of the sector and, resultantly, remain at odds with each other. Or this may be their method of taking growers and ginners up the garden path.

Ginners play a pivotal role in the sector and according to them, the textile milling sector is reluctant to purchase contamination free cotton on a premium. This discourages both farmers and ginners, they say, adding that under the present conditions, ensuring a high quantity of top grade cotton is not too easy. The sum total is negative lay of the land for contamination free cotton from Pakistan, a condition that is unlikely to change in the near future if the present system of dispensation persists.

Official addresses are, in any case, misdirected. Growers have an interest in improving the quality of their produce and ginners are similarly beneficiaries of untainted cotton. But the task is beyond them because the problem mostly surfaces after the farm gate is crossed. It is not that growers cannot do anything. They can certainly make picking more efficient and clean, but that is only one of the factors of contamination in cotton.

Contamination comprises leaves of plants, flower petals, sticks, weeds, dust and other such extraneous elements. Ridding the crop of them is the grower’s responsibility but undertaking that means higher investment, which the farmer is not in a position to do unless he is assured of better returns. The market is not tuned to that end and the administration, its lip service notwithstanding, provides practically no financial assistance to the farming community to do the needful.

The government had promised an additional amount of Rs50 per maund of phutti for contamination free cotton. This was a concrete incentive and farmers responded by cultivating cotton on a little over two hundred thousand acres. But the pledge has remained unfulfilled. The farmer who trusted the government would not be in a hurry to accept another promise next year. According to one report, growers spent millions of rupees on the packing and transportation of cotton to ensure that it was not contaminated. Their investment has gone down the drain.

Another source of contamination is transportation of cotton from the farm gate to the market or the ginner. This journey gives cotton a rough and contaminated ride. Cotton collects strands of polypropylene bags, dust, and a variety of dirt en route and finally, the yield is dumped on the soft floor of the markets. Proper storage facilities are unavailable to farmers and middlemen who transport the crop. They are not concerned with undertaking the expenses that do not bring fat profits.

What needs to be done is improving conditions of markets and making transportation more efficient. This, the farming sector cannot do. Local governments should have been working for securing these ends but their role is yet to be clearly delineated up till now and in any case, they appear to have been created with an eye on the political mileage they can deliver to the authorities, rather than what contribution they can make to the well-being of growers and for strengthening the economy.

Moreover, many stalwarts of the local government scene have their own vested interests and many of them are actually responsible for the sad state of present affairs in the cotton sector as they work as middlemen. They concentrate on fleecing farmers rather than streamlining the system.

Recently, some foreign delegations visited Pakistan to assess the quality of local cotton. They were all praise for the produce that they described as consisting of the longest and strongest strands in the world. Herwig H. Strolz, Director General of International Trade Manufacturers Association of Switzerland, who led a high-powered delegation, predicted that the ‘demand for Pakistan’s cotton was to increase because no quality product could be produced without Pakistan’s cotton.’ Pakistan, he said had a great chance in European markets but the condition for success was contamination free cotton.

But who is to ensure quality when the government ignores it?

The State Bank minimizes losses to provide support to the government’s contention that the economy is buoyant. The textile sector refuses to look beyond its nose. But the fact remains that Pakistan is losing a sum of around $5 billion every year because it fails to meet international standards.