Brooding over the grim realities behind the too low and poor quality of cotton produced this year, a meeting at the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock is reported to have conclude that the government is left with no option but to provide the growers an improved, resistible variety of Bt cottonseeds for the next cotton season.
Thankfully, better late than never, it dawned upon them that the setback this time was owed, among other factors, to the use of poor quality non-certified seeds, non-availability of the right pesticides effectively to combat mealy bug and CLCV attacks. Mention, in this context, was also made of the use of poor quality Bt cotton seeds smuggled from India by private sector, despite the government's restrictions.
More to this, it also appears to have been deemed expedient to ask the growers to increase the per acre yield of seeds. It was noted that due to high temperature with higher level of humidity last year, seed germination would suffer a negative impact this year. As for the availability of seeds, it was contended that it was twice the quantity we had last year, implying that the country already has 60 percent of its seed requirement.
To avert the risks of crop damage from mealy bug and CLCV attacks, Minfal was stated to be is in the process of coming up with certain tips for the farmers to boost the efficiency of pesticides. Over and above all else, the meeting decided to initiate a three-year project 'Biological Control of Major Cotton Pests with Emphasis on Mealy Bug' in 2009.
From all indications, it sounded like some kind of a message to the new government that while the situation on the cotton front maybe serious enough, Minfal is properly seized with it in an appropriate manner, or so it appears. Be that as it may, the grim fact remains that Pakistan is lagging far behind other countries in so far as biotechnological farming is concerned.
It was only in October last year that the Member, Planning Commission on Agriculture had given the happy tidings of adoption of biotechnology crops in Pakistan, saying the matter was under serious consideration of the government, as over 500,000 acres were already under cultivation of Bt cotton.
Belated though that initiative appeared to be, however, it should have been attributed to the lead taken by the farming community, rather than the government. For, as then pointed out in these comes, the Planning Commission official himself, had revealed on that occasion, that Pakistan had yet to approve of any variety of Bt seeds for future cultivation, to the need for regularisation of which the government seemed to have eventually wisened.
However, we found even this as encouraging that Biotechnology Safety Commission had been put in place with a keen eye on approval of all Bt varieties on a fast track.
Again, as we had then pointed out, impetus to the programme might have been provided by the presence of Clive James, Chairman of International Services for Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Application (ISAAA), who had come to Pakistan with the idea of adding to its existing list of nine members already benefiting from Bt cotton.
He was then reported to have pointed out that Pakistan, as the fourth largest producer of cotton in the world could derive more benefit as its tenth member. Referring to biotech as a big opportunity for Pakistan, he had laid marked emphasis on its prospects for alleviation of poverty, a task on the high priority list of the government.
According to him, Global Biotech Crop area had increased by 12 million hectares (13%) to reach 102 million hectares in 2006, which should have inspired Pakistan to catch up fast with this unfailing trend. This should have been all the more so because over 90 percent or 9.3 million farmers growing biotech crops comprised small, resource-poor, farmers from the developing world, making a modest contribution to alleviation of their poverty though biotechnology.
To them also belongs India in a big way rather. It has significantly increased its cotton production from 308-kg lint per hectare, in 2001-2002, to 450-kg per hectare in 2005-2006. For once, it should beckon us to emulate the Indian example.
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