The country has missed the cotton production target for 2008-09 as it achieved 12.10 million bales against the target of 14.11 million bales. A meeting of the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee was informed here on Thursday that despite the strenuous efforts to ensure certified seeds for the crop and plenty of pesticides available in the market, the government has failed to achieve the target.
The growing trend of oil seeds cultivation among farmers for higher price is one of the main reasons behind the shortfall in the projected cotton yield, the meeting was told. Punjab officials informed the meeting that according to the second estimate, cotton crop was cultivated on 2.248 million hectares while, 9.516 million bales have been produced as compared to last year's production of 9.062 million bales.
They said that area under cotton crop has been reduced by 7.3 percent as compared to last year while crop production increased by 1.4 percent during current year. Average production during current year remained 21.20 maunds per acre as compared to 19.45 maunds per acre during last year, the officials added.
Sindh officials said that cotton crop was cultivated over 562,000 hectares land against the target of 630,000 hectares. They said that about 2.85 million bales were produced against the targets of 3 million bales.
In Balochistan, cotton crop was cultivated over 0.345 million hectares with 89,161 bales production, while in NWFP total area under crop was 300 hectares with average production of 20 maunds per acre. The meeting was chaired by the Minster of State for Food and Agriculture, Rafique Jamali. Provincial heads of the agriculture departments and high officials of the ministry of food were also present in the meeting.