LAHORE: The Punjab province has set sowing target of cotton at 5 million acres of land this year with production target of 8.226 million bales.
Major contributor to this sowing target will be Bahawalpur division where the crop will be cultivated over an area of 2.314 million acres of land. This was disclosed at a meeting convened by Secretary Agriculture Punjab Iftikhar Ali Sahoo to finalize the implementation strategy for Cotton Action Plan 2023.
During a briefing to the Secretary, it was said that 50,000 tons of approved varieties of seeds is required for cotton cultivation in Punjab. So far, cotton cultivation has been completed on 58,2000 acres. Out of this, 21 per cent land has been cultivated with the approved variety “CKC3” and 11.7 per cent with “CKC06”.
On this occasion, the Director Federal Seed Certification and Registration Department said that the 20,000 tons of seed of approved varieties was available with the 60,800 seed dealers and certified seed is being supplied to the farmers.
The Secretary directed launching of an effective campaign against fake pesticides and said that through this campaign, availability of quality agricultural inputs to the farmers will be ensured.
Apart from this, subsidy is also being provided to the farmers on the seeds of the approved types of cotton.
He gave a clear target to the departments related to cotton campaign and assigned special responsibilities to the agricultural extension staff.
He said further that the local administration will also monitor the cotton action plan on the instructions of the Chief Minister of Punjab so that this year cotton is cultivated on maximum area.
Secretary Agriculture South Punjab Saqib Ali Attil, Director General Agriculture (Extension) Dr Anjum Ali, Director General Agriculture (Pest Warning) Rana Faqir Ahmed, Managing Director Punjab Seed Corporation Shanul Haque, Director Agriculture Information Punjab Muhammad Rafiq Akhtar and Director Federal Seed Certification and Registration Department attended the meeting.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023