Improving cotton yield
By Bilal Hassan
COTTON is an important cash crop and lifeline of textile
industry. It accounts for 8.2 per cent of the value-added in
the agriculture sector and about two per cent to GDP, adds
over $2.8 billion to the national economy.
Millions of farmers are directly associated with cultivation
and harvesting of cotton crop and sale of lint. Many others
are indirectly linked with cotton value chain. Thus,
livelihood of millions of farmers and of those employed
along the entire cotton value chain is dependent on this
single crop.
The government has an ambitious plan to expand textile
industry by the year 2008. This will make room for
incremental three million bales. To meet that demand, the
country needs to boost its cotton production. According to
an estimate increasing one million bales in cotton
production means half a per cent increase into GDP. That is
the reason why it is called silver fibre.
During the last many years, cultivated area of cotton has
been on increase. In the fiscal year 2005-06, cotton was
cultivated over 7.65 million acres compared to 7.25 million
acres in 2002-03. But the desired target of cotton
production remained a distant dream as it was largely below
target. Pakistan is the world's fourth largest cotton
producer and a leading exporter of yarn. It is, therefore,
stringent efforts are required in many areas to improve
cotton production to meet not only the export demand but
also domestic requirements.
Presently cotton crop is facing a number of constraints,
including low per acre yield that ranks Pakistan 10th in the
world; high price of agriculture inputs (seeds, fertilisers,
pesticides etc); higher intensity of insects and pests
attack; shortage of good quality, high-yielding, insect and
pests resistant varieties of seeds; deficiency of irrigation
water; lack of advance technologies; lack of awareness and
agro-professionalism; and adulterations in pesticides,
fertilisers and seeds. Above all natural factors like
unexpected rain, drought, and floods especially in southern
Punjab and Sindh. The yield remains low because unfavourable
weather conditions at the time of sowing affect germination
causing re-sowing of crop, increase incidence of pest attack
in the early growth of the crop as well as at the time of
flowering and boll formation, decrease in the number of
bolls and weight and higher weed intensity.
All of this have added unbearable burden on cotton growers.
Additionally, there is no proper crop insurance system in
the country. The absence of a proper cotton crop insurance
system or any support system in the shape of subsidies by
the government is resulting in frustration and lack of
motivation in cotton growers to spend resource in their
fields in order to improve cotton yields.
There is reduction of 13 per cent in cotton production in
accordance with economic survey 2005-06. Cotton crop harvest
for 2005-06 was 12.4 million bales as against 14.3 million
bales last year whereas the area under cotton crop since
last two decades has been on an average between 7.12 and
7.42 millions acres. Because of low cotton production,
Pakistan annually has to import 1.5-2 million bales to meet
expanding demand of local textile mills. Moreover, the
country has been losing some 10-15 per cent of value of its
cotton due to poor quality. Improper picking methods,
adulteration of cotton with water and other material, missed
grades and seed varieties and improper packing, storage and
transportation means are responsible for poor quality of
cotton. Loss is amounting to $350 million per annum.
In this context, it is essential to ponder over the means
and ways to improve cotton production in the country. The
government is well aware of the overwhelming significance of
cotton as lifeline of economy. It is looking for different
options to visualise Cotton Vision 2015 of 20.70 million
bales production. This is only possible making constant
efforts in the field of research and for increasing the lint
yield per acre by adopting modern production techniques.
Increase in cotton production could be achieved either by
enhancing area under cotton crop or per care lint yield or
both. But the option to increase area under cotton
cultivation cannot be exercise because of lack of supply of
irrigation water and the two major cotton growing provinces
of Punjab and Sindh are already at their maximum level.
Cotton crop faces competition from other crops as well that
is also a constraint in bringing more area under this crop.
However, possibility is there to increase cultivation of
cotton in different district of Balochistan like Sibi,
Nasirabad and Kalat divisions and NWFP districts like D. I.
Khan. However, main obstacle is the shortage of water beside
lack of agro infrastructure and geopolitical uncertainty in
these areas.
Only option is to increase per acre lint yield by applying
modern cotton technologies that have successfully been
adopted in many developed and developing countries to
improve crop yields.
Cotton crop is well exposed to biotic pressure. The greatest
threat is from insect and pests. There are two major types
of pests that are damaging cotton crops in Pakistan. These
are sucking and chewing because weather conditions
agro-ecological zones are suitable for multiplicity of
population to some extent but is very challenging to control
chewing pests that are injurious to growth, development and
production of crop. Important chewing pests include American
bollworms, Army, Pink and Spotted.
Destruction of cotton crop 1992 in the wake of devastating
attack of Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) and record reduction
of lint production in the country and threatened the
national economy. Vector of that virus is white fly, a
sucking insect. A wide array of pesticides was introduced to
control crop insects/pests but owing to excessive use of
chemicals, pests have developed resistant against these
chemicals. Pests control is no more effective because of
adulteration of pesticides, faulty spraying equipments and
untrained labour. Different cotton cultivars resistant to
sucking pests have been introduced. Today, 8.2 million
farmers in 17 countries of whom 90 per cent belong to the
developing countries choose to plant biotech crops. The use
of biotech crops has significantly reduced pesticide usage
while increasing yields.
Many Asian countries including China, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and Vietnam are
giving high priority to plant biotechnology research in the
hope of addressing the pressing challenges related to
improving productivity, farmers livelihoods, driving rural
development, and meeting food security demands. Many of
these countries focus their biotechnology research on food
crops and non food crops and crops of high commercial value
in the hope of meeting increasing food requirements and
reducing use of pesticides and poverty alleviation in rural
area.
Bt cotton introduced in 1996 has immense potential to
improve cotton productivity. It is an important tool to
control chewing pests. Need is to commercialise it. It is
the responsibility of research institutes to come up with
high yielding production technology and proper
recommendations of inputs. At the same time, extension
department should play its role in dissemination of Bt seed
and growing technology.
Courtesy: The DAWN
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