Production of cotton crop may fall short by 10 to 15 percent of the target of 15 million bales due to monsoon, floods and bad weather this year, official sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday.
They said that since picking season had started they could estimate crop production pattern from September to December the in light of reports received from field officers in the cotton growing regions.
They said that the first jolt to the crop came in July-August with floods when cotton crop on about 300,000 acres was damaged in the low lying and katcha areas of River Indus both in Sindh and Punjab.
Agriculture field officers and growers now apprehend decline in per acre yield due to unfavourable weather as there were about 10-15 percent less than normal cotton producing vessel seeds (Doda) with a healthy plant.
However, sources said they were hopeful that the stock available with mills and TCP and fresh cotton arrival of around 14 million bales would be enough to meet the requirements of the domestic textile industry.
They said that lint and seed-cotton prices had fallen and the market was sluggish last week because of several factors. Yet the government wanted that the growers must get at least Rs 975 per 40 kg seed-cotton (phutti).
About intervention by Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) they said that as a pilot project TCP would purchase 200,000 bales high quality and contamination-free cotton from 25 to 50 ginning factories in Punjab and Sindh.
Sources said that TCP still had 4,00,000 bales cotton from its last season's purchases even after offloading its stocks in foreign and local markets on which it earned some profits.
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