ISLAMABAD, Aug 7: Pakistan can raise its output of cotton to 15 million bales depending on its ability, among other measures, to check the onslaught of pests, prices and allocate adequate funds for research.
This was stated by Dr Qadir Bux Baloch, cotton commissioner in the ministry of food, agriculture and livestock, in a lecture on cotton economy at a meeting of the Scientists’ Club.
In the year 1991-92, Pakistan passed into double digit barrier for the first and the last time with a harvest of 11.4 million bales. That record remains unbroken after the passage of 11 years, he added.
He suggested a number of measures to obtain the 15 million bales target, e.g: turn rice-growing areas of Balochistan into cotton-producing areas, induce NWFP to expand cotton acreage and switch from rice to cotton on the right bank of the Indus in Sindh.
Other milestones on the path to the target include education and motivation of farmers to adopt recommended measures; improving the ginning process to minimize lint losses, and continuing support price system for safeguarding and maintaining growers’ interest.
Many of these measures are already included in the current cotton policy of the government. The policy also envisages qualitative improvement in cotton through standardization and grading at the grassroots level, cotton pricing and marketing based on grade and staple, free trade in cotton, etc.
Realizing the role of low quality in low prices fetched by cotton from the international market, the provincial governments have already amended the cotton control to eliminate contamination.
A focused effort was made in Rahimyar Khan district to induce farmers to reduce impurities in cotton to the international threshold of 2.5 grams per kg instead of 18-20 grams as at present.
Besides, the government has established a cotton standards institute in Faisalabad, approved national cotton grades and fixed the support price of seed cotton on the basis of grading. At the same time, the Karachi Cotton Association has started issuing spot rates on a grade and staple basis.
Sustained growth of cotton production, moreover, is confronted by the problems of high temperature, scant plant population per acre and the pressure of pests, particularly, the cotton leaf curl virus (CLCV). A number of CLCV-resistant varieties developed over the past several years have ceased to be resistant.
Here comes the vital role of research which, remarked Dr N.H. Hashmy, director-general National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, “is the only engine of all growth”.
The green revolution based almost exclusively on fertilisers and pesticides has run its course, leaving a myriad of problems in its wake and giving rise to a complex situation for a viable agricultural growth, he added.
While Egypt has moved away from cotton and turned towards production of horticulture and other value-added crops, Pakistan will remain dependent on cotton in the foreseeable future.
Apart from the challenges enumerated by Dr Baloch, Dr Hashmy said research had to find a sustainable solution to the recurrent problem of pests resistant to pesticides and the residues of these poisons in farm commodities which posed a grave threat to the health and well-being of human beings.
As the countries invoke WTO agreements on such matters, Pakistan faces a peril to its agricultural exports. He was, however, pleased to note that the government had now started paying attention to this problem.
A member of the audience observed that the pesticides expenditure in Pakistan had gone up 5 items to Rs22 billion in 15 years. A farm scientist blamed big landlords for sabotaging efforts to minimize pesticide use. “They used their political clout to obtain subsidies on pesticides in collusion with the marketing companies,” he alleged.