Pakistan will require about 3000 tons mineral oil to tackle the looming mealy bug threat to cotton crop. The government is planning to meet its requirement through import from Egypt, it is learnt.
Sources told Business Recorder on Wednesday that mineral oil would now be affordable for farmers after the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) decision to remove 42 percent duties and taxes on the import of the commodity, whose availability is a must to enable farmers to have good cotton crop in the current fiscal year.
The Helb Company, which is already working in Pakistan, would import the oil, which is widely known as "Diver". The Faisalabad and Multan Research Institutes conducted the required tests on oil and results were found 'quite satisfactory'. The result reports were discussed in the meeting of agriculture stakeholders at Lahore on July 9 that was chaired by the Provincial Agriculture Minister and attended by officials of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal).
There were two divergent views about the effectiveness of the oil, sources said, with Dr Gulam Mustafa of Ayub Agriculture Research Institute Faisalabad supporting it. However, the observations of the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (Niab) about the effectiveness were not very encouraging, they added.
Sources said there were two urgent meetings of all the stakeholders held at Lahore on "Cotton mealy bug management in Pakistan" to review the availability of pesticide and measures to be adopted to address the problem following the survey of Center for Cotton Research Institute (CCRI).
The CCRI survey revealed that mealy bug and white flies were posing a serious threat to cotton crop, which was heavily affected last year and 11 percent of the total crop was damaged. The meeting was informed that about 6,876 metric tons pesticides was available against the total requirement of 10,000 metric tons for the season. The meeting, however, directed the private sector to ensure the availability of sufficient stock of pesticide prior to spraying time.
An official of the Minfal said that the ministry was also working on biological control of the mealy bug and white flies. The predators are being developed in different research institutes to control the mealy bug. Three different kinds of predators imported from the US are being processed for further multiplication in different laboratories.