What is an anomaly? In 2012, Pakistan’s cotton recorded its highest-ever yield at 815 kg per hectare. According to Annual Economic Survey that year, the increased productivity and profitability from lint crop could be attributed to “use of BT cotton, and control of widespread attack of cotton leaf curl virus, and sucking pests”. Aggregate area cropped had recorded slight up tick too, suggesting that the crop was finally set to stage a turnaround.
Recall that this was the same year when global cotton prices had reached their historical peak after the widespread destruction of crop in Pakistan in the aftermath of 2011 floods. Cotton’s high yield, it could be argued, were a result of farmers of all sizes increasing investment on crop via improved fertilizer and pesticide application, in response to better financial returns.
The reality was starkly different. 2012, in fact, was a year of anomaly. While cultivation had improved in Punjab, area in Sindh had reduced by almost half of long term-average, at just 260 thousand hectares. While Punjab managed to rebound, small-scale growers in Sindh were still reeling from devastation of floods.
It is important to recall here that historically, cotton has performed better in Sindh than Punjab, with yield in southern region averaging above 1,050 hectares since 2010, a feat Punjab yet to be achieved by growers in Punjab. Within Sindh, cotton cultivation is primarily dominated in the central Mirpurkhas division which incidentally also has the highest yield.
Back to 2012. Mirpurkhas division saw a decline of over 87 percent in area under cultivation, as did other traditional cotton regions in Hyderabad and Sukkur divisions. But as the historical yield illustration shows, cotton yield shot up to over four thousand kg per hectare in Mirpurkhas; with yield in its Sanghar district closing in at 5,700 hectares.
What explains the anomaly? Sanghar district, for example, saw cotton acreage of just 13 thousand hectares versus 130 thousand hectares on average. The elimination of small growers due to floods, in fact revealed the remarkable yields achieved by few large-scale progressive farmers in the region, who usually get lost in annual averages of economic survey.
The story is similar for other crops such as maize, sugarcane and rice, where progressive farmers across the country have been achieving target yields competitive with global averages. Yet, they often go unnoticed, in the pedantic reviews and surveys that talk about Pakistan’s generic agriculture woes. The need is to not only highlight these anomalies, but to popularize their best practices in order to address Pakistan’s abysmal crop yields.