Minfal meeting to evolve strategy to protect cotton crop

The Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) has called an emergency meeting to formulate a strategy to protect cotton crop from lethal virus of mealy bug, which is threatening the production target of 14.1 million bales for the year, it was learnt on Tuesday.
Sources told Business Recorder that officials of federal and provincial food and agriculture ministries would discuss different options available against mealy bug, including biological control the problem through use of predators.
According to the sources, senior officials of the federal and provincial government will attend the meeting to be held in Lahore on Wednesday (today). The cotton crop has heavily been affected by attacks from mealy bug during the last three years. The total damage by the mealy bug was roughly about 11 percent only in last year.
Thus the total cotton production for 2007-08 was 11.7 million bales, 17 percent short of set target of 14.1 million bales. The production was relatively low even from previous year with growers suffering huge losses both in yield and quality.
Sources said the recent survey conducted by the Center of Cotton Research Institute (CCRI) revealed that huge area was already affected by the mealy bug and the emergency meeting was convened to look for means to address the problem. This would be the second meeting between federal and provincial officials of agriculture ministries as the first one was held on June 12 at Lahore.
A detailed presentation would be given by the Minfal officials about the measures required to be taken against mealy bug. A Minfal official said the government was already importing mineral oil from the USA for spraying on the crops to ensure 14.11 million bales target for 2008-09 over an area of 3.2 million hectares.
For the biological control of the mealy bug, the predators were imported from the USA. About 12,000 predators are available and their multiplication is underway to get rid of the menace permanently.
A meeting on cotton production strategy decided last month that to control mealy bug these predators would be conserved on an area of 5,000 acres in 29 selected districts of Sindh.
The Minfal official said that multiplication of these predators was in the process in different labs, including Center for Cotton Research Institute (CCRI), Multan, and other parts of the country.