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Cotton crisis looms large
LAHORE, April 23:
Farmers in the Punjab are fearing a cotton crisis,
as the Indus River System Authority's calculations
about the late Kharif water availability seem to
go wrong.
By the middle of March, Irsa was estimating only
four per cent water shortage during the late
Kharif season. It later revised the figure to
eight per cent by March 30 and, subsequently, to
13 per cent at its meeting on April 13.
Now within a week, the actual shortage has gone up
to 35 to 40 per cent, leaving the country's
agricultural health and farmers on the verge of
disaster. The Punjab irrigation department has
shut down all the non-perennial canals and
restricted supply to the perennial ones. It is now
hoping for increase in temperatures and melting of
snow.
"Unless temperature increases to ensure melting of
snow in low hills by the end of the month, the
country is set for a disaster as far as the cotton
situation is concerned," a Punjab Irrigation
Department official said here on Thursday.
He said the farmers would have to start preparing
land for cotton sowing by May 1 and sow it within
15 days, otherwise, the final yield would be
sacrificed. Similarly, he said, Irsa would have to
start releasing water by May 1 so that water
reached the southern part of the Punjab in the
second week of the month, warning that any delay
would make the crop vulnerable to severe pest
attack.
The farmers feared that they might not be able to
sow the crop at all if the water situation didn't
improve drastically in the next few days. They
said the department was currently concentrating on
perennial canals that fed brackish areas, but
non-brackish areas and new districts where the
Punjab government had tried to extend sowing were
left high and dry.
"Although the exact situation will become clear
only in the next few days, early clues are
disturbing," according to head of the Farmers
Associates of Pakistan. The farmers would prefer
sowing cotton this year because they got a good
price last year, he added.
He said the farmers couldn't sow the crop even
with tubewells because the price of diesel had
been enhanced to Rs23 per litre from Rs12 per
litre in 2001. Thus the cost of the total water
supply would be too high for them.
The farmers were also fearing reduction in the
cost of lint in the international market. It was
72 cents only two weeks ago, but now it was around
58 cents. The situation had become difficult for
the farmers and they could only pray for increase
in temperatures.
Commenting on the situation, the department
officials said the situation was alarming, but it
might improve in the next few days. They added
that there was little chance of any substantial
increase in acreage, which the department was
hoping for before the water crisis.
A farmer from the southern Punjab claimed that
rain in the last two days in some areas had
brought little relief and the farmers could do
nothing but to pray for favourable circumstances.
The DAWN |
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Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
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