Daily Times

The cotton sowing in the country has been completed over 2.588 million hectares as against the set targets of 2.767 million hectares for the crop season 2023-24 to fulfill the industrial and commercial requirements of local industry as well as for exporting. The farming community across the crop-producing areas by the first week of the current month (June) completed crop cultivation over 93.53 percent of the total area fixed for the season to achieve an output of 12.77 million bales, said Dr Zahid, Cotton Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research. Talking to APP on Wednesday, he said, “Crop sowing in Punjab has been completed over 95.11 percent area over 1.920 million hectares against the set target of 2.019 million hectares to produce about 8.336 million bales during the current season.” “Meanwhile, Sindh has achieved over 84.49 percent of its assigned targets and completed crop sowing over 0.5678 million hectares as compared to the set crop sowing targets of 0.672 million hectares while the cotton output targets for the province is fixed at 4.00 million bales.” “During the season, the cotton sowing observed upward momentum in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan provinces as both the provinces achieved their cultivation targets by 113 percent and 132.24 percent respectively.” Growth in crop sowing in the two provinces was mainly attributed to the incentives introduced by the current government to revive crop production in the country, he added. “In KP, the cotton crop has been cultivated over 0.0026 million hectares against the set targets of 0.0023 million hectares,” Dr Zahid informed. He informed that the crop output of the province was fixed at 0.004 million bales, whereas about 0.0809 million hectares of Balochistan were put under cotton production to produce about 0.430 million bales during the period under review. The cotton commissioner further informed that the incumbent government was taking appropriate measures to revive cotton output and introduced several measures for encouraging local growers. He said that the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet had fixed cotton (Phutti) intervention price (CIP) at Rs 8,500 per 40kg to revive cotton production, bring stability to the domestic market and assure a fair return to farmers in the country.