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Country to face 25% shortfall in lint production

By Razi Syed

KARACHI: The country will face around 25 percent shortfall of cotton yield due to mealy bug and Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) attack and reddening of leaf, growers said on Tuesday.

Punjab was likely to produce 11 million bales while Sindh’s production was estimated around three million bales this season.

A senior member of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) and President PCGA Sanghar cotton belt region, Raja Abdul Sattar said the recent spell of rains in the Sindh and Punjab cotton growing belts affected the quality and the volume of the crop, especially the Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT) variety of cotton.

Mr Sattar said the virus attack and recent rainfall affected around 65 percent of the crop in interior Sindh and adjoining areas including Sanghar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Badin and Umerkot, where the crop was at an advanced stage and plants had started to flower.

He said the crop in Digri, Naukot, Sukkur, Khairpur and Nawabshah was under attack of mealy bug and reddening of leaf, where 90 percent of BT cotton crop was at the maturity level.

He said though the damage to the cotton crop was limited in Punjab but concern was building that the mealy bug and CLCV would endanger the country’s largest cotton belt in Punjab. These conditions have brought into question whether Pakistani cotton producers could meet the 2007-08 production target or not?

He said CLCV has no remedy and farmers should be on guard if any one claims its treatment. Dry weather conditions are conducive for the cotton plant. He said at least, the lower quality of the Sindh crop would affect the volume of higher-grade imports’ needed. He said the recent damage to the crop would likely to reduce the overall size of the cotton crop by around 8-10 percent.

The federal government set the target of 14.14 million cotton bales for the crop season 2007-08. There would be a shortfall of around 3.1 million bales, he added. He said around 45 percent of the total cultivation in the country is BT type cotton. Nearly 90 percent of this type is cultivated in Sindh and about 30 percent is cultivated in Punjab.

He said September is crucial for the cotton crop as it bears fruits these days, therefore it is important for the cotton growers to handle the cotton virus attacks with utmost care and help of agricultural scientists. According to a fortnightly report of PCGA, cotton arrival has reached 1.013 million bales mark on September 15, 2007, but still lower by 14 percent over last year’s 13.102 million bales.

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