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Canals’ closure delays cotton sowing in Sindh
KARACHI: Cotton
sowing will suffer in upper Sindh as the canals of
Guddu Barrage will remain closed for another
couple of weeks for de-silting operation,
irrigation department sources said.
The canals were earlier scheduled to open on May
1.
Cotton sowing in lower Sindh had already been
affected by late cultivation and water shortage as
only 19 per cent sowing had been completed till
April 22, which should have reached 45 to 50 per
cent by that time.
Sources told The News that only Desert Feeder
canal of Guddu Barrage would, possibly, discharge
water from May 1 while other two major canals - B
S Feeder and Ghotki Feeder - that were the main
water sources for cotton crop in upper Sindh would
remain shut for two more weeks. Desert Feeder
Canal supplies water to Balochistan.
The canals could not be opened due to ongoing
de-silting operation, which will affect cotton
sowing which starts in the belt from May 1.
On the other hand, water shortage was another
factor for the low crop. Water flow at Guddu
Barrage was 22,948 cusecs on April 27 against
demand of 58,000 cusecs.
The 1991 water-sharing accord for the province
sets 43,150 cusecs for Guddu Barrage.
Sukkur Barrage was discharging 18,255 cusecs of
water against its share of 31,600 cusecs. Water
flow at Kotri Barrage remained at only 1,952
cusecs on Thursday against allocation of 6,900
cusecs, official sources added.
Meanwhile, cotton sowing in Mirpurkhas, Badin and
Sanghar districts had already been harmed by late
sowing on fears of pest attack and shortage of
water as channels of Nara Canal were discharging
water on rotational basis.
Data available with the Sindh Agriculture
Department regarding cotton sowing in the province
showed that only 18 to 19 per cent sowing target
was achieved by April 22.
Officials believe that cotton sowing in lower
Sindh, the third largest belt of the country after
Punjab and upper Sindh, could not achieve the
target. Ultimately, cotton production would
decrease by 30 to 40 per cent this year.
Cotton sowing was only 25 per cent in Badin
district at 1,250 hectares against the target of
5,000 hectares. Mirpurkhas witnessed only 14.4 per
cent sowing as only 12,000 hectares were sown
against the target of 83,000 hectares.
Hyderabad remained at 15 per cent with sowing of
9,525 hectares against the target of 63,000 while
the largest cotton producing district in lower
Sindh, Sanghar, could cultivate only 18.7 per cent
crop at 24,310 hectares against 130,000 hectares’
target.
The provincial government has fixed a target of
590,000 hectares’ sowing and 2.4 million bales
production in 2004-05 cotton season against last
year’s production of 2.24 million bales.
The target for the previous year was 2.4 million
bales.
On the other hand, farmers in the province prefer
use of well-known cottonseed Niab-78 despite being
vulnerable to pest attack. Last year, Armyworm had
hit major belts of upper Sindh and southern
Punjab.
Sources said that Niab-78 was the most vulnerable
seed, so its sowing was banned in Punjab during
the current season while farmers of Sindh were
still sowing the variety because of good
production.
A member of the Cotton Crop Management Committee,
headed by the provincial agriculture minister,
said that though the government had tried to
replace Niab-78 with other seeds like Chandi,
Cris-9, Cris-134, CIM-473 and FH-901 but the
farmers had no choice but to use Niab as other
varieties were not available in the market.
The News
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Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
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