The growers in a cotton crop management committee meeting, held in Karachi on Thursday, termed Provincial Food and Agriculture Minister Arif Mustafa Jatoi's cotton crop estimates for 2004-05 as pretentious.
Arif Mustafa Jatoi chaired the meeting, which was also attended by the representatives of growers, fertiliser and seed companies and officials of the Agriculture Extension Services.
The growers' representative who arrived here after attending the meeting told Business Recorder that no doubt the sowing target has been completed to the extent of 85 percent, but the crop is under water pressure resulting in stunted growth of early sown cotton in lower Sindh.
The attack of Thrips, Jassid White fly, spotted and pink boll warm, mite and army worm has been observed. While emergence of cotton leaf curl virus (CLCV) was also observed in small patches in Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah and Sanghar districts.
The extension officials claimed that the pest attack and ring type disease and CLCV remains much below the economic threshold level, but extremely poor availability of water has aggravated the situation and at places shedding of flower has been observed.
They said no doubt that at present the climatic conditions are favourable but in case of late monsoon rains the crop would have adverse impact especially in those areas where it was at flowering to boll formation stage.
They said it is high time that the minister should visit the area and see for himself the crop conditions and the problems confronted by the farming community.
They, however, supported the suggestion of the minister that to establish Sindh's role in the economy of the country a system of double check-posts may be introduced to record quantity of seed cotton cross over to Punjab. They said that the Punjab ginners purchased early picked cotton from Sindh.
To a question, they said that the minister had assured that the double check-post system would in no way circumvent transportation of cotton to Punjab. The minister informed the meeting that to date over 34,000 maunds of early picked seed cotton had already crossed over to Punjab.
They said that the minister also informed the meeting that the Agriculture Department has decided to initiate legal action against unauthorised dealers of pesticides and agriculture and urged upon the pesticide and fertiliser companies to provide the list of their authorised dealers and ensure sufficient stock to meet the requirement of the growers.