ISLAMABAD, Sept 17: The government has decided to do away with the system of conducting trials of experimental cotton seed on the farmers’ fields in view of the numerous malpractice associated with it.

In future, an official source told Dawn, all such trials would be carried out at the public sector farms and only that cotton seed would be allowed which had been found beneficial in terms of productivity and resistance to pest/disease attacks at the end of a full cycle of trials on fields.

Under the policy, finalized at a high-level meeting co-chaired by the federal ministers for agriculture and commerce and attended by officials of provincial agriculture departments recently, the government would exercise strict vigilance to ensure that only certified seed is sown.

Accordingly, the government of Punjab recently released the following list of six certified varieties developed by the cotton research institute at Multan that would be sown next year: (1) CIM-473; (2) CIM 446; (3) CIM-482; (4) FH-900; (5) FH-901; and CIM-443.

The government of Sindh is likely to follow suit in the near future after promulgation of an amended cotton control act.

Asked about the rationale for the change in policy regarding trials of experimental cotton seed, a source in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) said the progressive farmers had turned the system into a tool for making undue profits.

They sold the seed obtain from the crop of experimental seed produced on their farms to seed agencies. The latter, in turn, multiplied it and sold it to other farmers for production of regular crop. It is this malpractice that impelled Dr Kausar Abdullah Malik, head of seed department in Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, to hold the “seed mafia” responsible for various setbacks suffered by the cotton economy recently.

By indulging in this unethical practice, they disregarded the fact that the seed was not ready for commercial production because its resistance to stresses from climate and diseases and productivity level had not yet been ascertained.

The result was often the proliferation of diseases and sub-optimal production, resulting in huge losses to the farmers as well as the national economy.

The average yield in Pakistan as of 2001-02 was 562kg per hectare as against the world average of 640kg. Some of the other countries have succeeded in raising their yields to as high a level as 1,740kg per hectare in Australia. Turkey obtains 1,345kg from each hectare of cotton. These facts point to the vast potential that still lay unrealized in Pakistan, the source remarked.

In Punjab, source of about 80 per cent of the country’s domestic cotton, a whole new set of measures have been conceived for improving efficiency in the production of cotton, it was further learned.

The provincial agriculture department would ensure that, the federal government has been informed, cotton stubs are removed completely at the end of season as a safeguard against disease.

It would also ensure that cotton is not sown next year before May 1. An awareness campaign would be launched with a view to dissuading farmers from sowing chillies and okra in cotton fields.

It was resolved to enforce strict enforcement of the quarantine law in order to avoid acculturation of imported seed especially of cotton, okra and cucurbits.