THE crackdown by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association against those of its members engaged in the reprehensible act of adulterating premium quality cotton with inferior grade fibre is welcome, though long overdue. This practice allows ginners to undercut prices to make a quick buck, while imposing additional costs on textile producers. More critically, it has undermined global confidence in Pakistan’s capacity as a supplier of quality cotton-based textiles and apparel — our key foreign exchange earner. Larger exporters have mostly switched to imported cotton or synthetic fibres to meet international standards and protect their overseas sales. That said, adulteration at the ginning stage has thrived because of the contamination of domestically produced cotton at the farm gate.

Pakistan has long suffered the reputation of being a producer of highly contaminated cotton. Though contamination can occur at every step — from farm-picking to ginning — the manual harvesting of cotton bolls by women remains the single biggest cause. Trash, dust, leaves, flowers, sticks, weeds and plastic are among the major contaminants at the time of harvest. But the quality of cotton should no longer be our policymakers’ only concern. The use of substandard seed varieties, outdated farming practices, recurring disease and worsening climate stress have together slashed the annual crop output to nearly half of the average production of 10m bales a year — another reason for the rising cotton and yarn imports. The same factors are exacerbating the problem of contamination. It should, therefore, be stressed that while clamping down on the ginners’ malpractices is necessary, it cannot revive the cotton economy. For this, the entire domestic cotton supply chain would have to be reformed — from the provision of technical and financial aid for growers to encouraging modern techniques in order to improve output and quality. Without such support, the cotton crop will remain vulnerable. And so will our textile exports.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2025