The sowing of cotton crop has been completed over an area of 3.247 million hectares for 2004-05, surpassing the set target of by 6.3 percent against the last year's area achievement of 3.946 million hectares.
According to official sources, the Federal Agriculture Committee (FAC) has set the target of 3.140 million hectares for sowing of cotton for 2004-05, while setting production target of 10.720 million bales.
The sowing also shown an increase of 10 percent over the last year, when cotton crop was cultivated over an area of 2.95 million hectares.
If farmers given better prices then they will put in balanced inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides to get better yield even more than the last year's production of 10.061 million bales, the sources added.
The supply of irrigation water had affected cotton sowing in Punjab, where cotton sowing has so far been completed over an area of 2.5 million hectares against the set target of 2.387 million hectares, thus showing an increase of 10.1 percent over the last year.
The sowing in Sindh has been completed over an area of 0.6112 million hectares against the last years showing over an area of 0.536, showing an increase by 9.9 percent as compared to the corresponding period last year.
In NWFP, the cotton was sown over an area of 7,100 acres, showing an increase of 71 percent over the last year.
The certified seed of following three newly evolved cotton varieties was distributed among the farmers of DI Khan for cultivation and scientists of the Central Cotton Research Institute, Multan, and the Cotton Research Station, DI Khan trained the farmers of the area for cotton development.