All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) has estimated that the consumption by industry will be around 20.10 million bales of raw cotton by the year 2015 comprising 66pc of medium staple, 26pc of long staple and eight per cent of extra long staple.
However, the working group constituted by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Minfal) has put the minimum raw cotton consumption by the textile industry around 18.5 million bales by 2015.
On the other, the cotton production has registered an annual growth rate of six per cent, realised through two per cent increase in acreage and four per cent increase in per hectare yield during the last 10 years ending 2004-05.
In view of the four per cent annual increase in demand of raw cotton by the local industry, it is imperative to take effective measures to raise the cotton production to 20.70 million bales by 2015 and for that, the acreage and per acre yield need to be increased. The cotton production target for 2006-07 has been fixed at 13.82 million bales.
A considerable area has been rendered unproductive due to water logging and salinity. These problems could be corrected by raising availability of good quality water to enable soluble salts leach, increasing infiltration by proper tillage practices, making arrangements for adequate drainage of surplus water, reducing cost of amendments and using good quality water for irrigation.
Ensuring water availability to till areas by construction of canals, introduction of drip and sprinkler irrigation system, especially in Balochistan, can help in bringing more areas under cotton crop to increase production.
There is also need to increase the per hectare cotton yield to 1,060-kg from the current 686-kg. Seed is a basic input to get higher per hectare yield. The availability of healthy and viable seed is essential. It is unfortunate that our farmers don’t pay much attention towards quality of the seed due to poor knowledge about cotton varieties, seed pricing and distribution channels.
The research institutes are required to evolve cotton leaf curl virus resistant varieties, transgenic cotton varieties (Bt cotton) and cotton hybrids.
Efforts should be made to ensure compliance of rules pertaining to the quality, germination and purity of seed offered for sale to the farmers. Seed must follow the code prescribed by the International Seed Testing Agencies (ISTA) of Geneva. The minimum germination level prescribed for cotton seed in the country is 75pc.
Short training courses should be arranged at the universities of agriculture and various agricultural research institutes for educating farmers about methods for producing seeds.
The growers must ensure that seed is free from weeds and other material, it should be of high germination ability and vigour, possesses uniform size and low moisture content.
Besides this, adequate and timely availability of other inputs including fertilisers, irrigation, pesticides, production loans and technology transfer at the grass roots level with particular focus on scientific crop and pest management is crucial to obtain higher per hectare yield.
Fertilisers are increasingly ineffective over the last decade due to non-responsive crop varieties, non-recommended fertiliser use, imbalanced dosage, untimely application, improper placement, high prices and adulteration.
The small farmers who cultivate nearly 50pc of total cotton area could not afford to apply balanced fertiliser, quality seed, required pesticide doses and farm machinery.
Over 70pc pesticides are sprayed on single cotton crop to control various insects/pests — pink bollworm, spotted boll-worm, cotton leaf-roller, bud moth, jassids, whitefly, and thus contributes –- making the cost of cotton production much higher compared to other major crops.
However, pesticides are increasingly ineffective due to adulteration, imbalanced application of irrigation and fertiliser, faulty spraying equipments, development of resistance in insects/pests and poor knowledge of farmers about their usage.