Growers in Punjab have brought 5.61 million acres of land under cotton sowing this year out of which it is expected to achieve the target of 10.5 million bales. This was stated by Punjab Agriculture Minister Dr Farrukh Javed while chairing the meeting of the Cotton Crop Management Croup which was also attended by the Secretary Agriculture Punjab Ali Tahir, Cotton Commissioner Dr Khalid Abdullah, Director General Agriculture (Extension & AR) Dr Anjum Ali and other high-ups.
According to the information reached here, it was also attended by the progressive growers and officials from Chief Engineers Canals of Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan and Faisalabad zones. The meeting observed that overall situation of the cotton crop is satisfactory but growers should carry out daily monitoring of the crop and twice a week pest scouting, the committee advised the cotton growers. The meeting also advised if farmers found attack of pest above economic threshold then spray of pesticide should be carried out in consultation with local agricultural department's experts.
Director General Agriculture (extension) Dr Anjum Ali speaking on this occasion said farmer training programmes are arranged at village level to disseminate latest technology about BT and non-BT cotton. He said till now 346 teams have trained 965,639 growers from 10,127 villages. The department also distributed 1.8 million copies of literature about latest production technologies. The meeting was also informed that the department had collected 3,615 samples of pesticides to check substandard and fake pesticides in the province during the month of 2014. The department registered cases against 85 persons while confiscated 31,303 kilograms of substandard pesticides worth Rs 5.8 million.
Similarly, the department also launched a movement against adulteration in fertilizer and collected 1,553 samples out of which 72 were found substandard and fertilizer worth 2.48 million were confiscated. Speaking on this occasion Secretary Agriculture Punjab Ali Tahir said the government is making effective planning for production increase of important crops such as cotton, wheat and paddy. He said the department has been given clear targets for increasing per acre yield so as to ensure prosperity of the growers and strengthening of the national economy.