Daily Times

KARACHI: The Textile Ministry and concerned agencies responsible for the protection of crops should take preemptive measures in order to safeguard the cotton crop from different virus attacks and use of uncertified seeds by growers.

The cotton crop should be protected from possible virus attacks in cotton growing areas in Sindh and Punjab, as the fresh crop season has started, the agriculture experts and traders said.

Executive members of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA), Sindh Agriculture Forum, Karachi Cotton Association and Pakistan Apparel Form (PAF) urged government agriculture monitoring authorities to ensure only developers and licensees should be allowed to market genetically modified (GM) seeds.

The cotton growers should also take actions to remove weeds and spray the pest-infested fields at the earliest in order to minimise any damage to the cotton crop.

A senior KCA member, Ghulam Rabbani said cotton leaf curl virus (CLCV) has no remedy and farmers should be on guard if any one claims its treatment.

Rabbani said the farmers should follow the cotton expert’s advice in case the crop is attacked by army bollworm.

He said all cotton plants, including those affected by the virus are developing due to a change in the temperature.

September is crucial for the cotton crop as it bears in those days, therefore it is important for the cotton growers to handle the cotton virus attacks with utmost care and the help of agriculture scientists, he remarked.

One litre of chloropyriphos mixed with 100 litres of water should be sprayed on the crop and growers should minimise the use of water while fighting spotted and American bollworm, advised Rana Abdul Sattar of PCGA.

In Pakistan, cotton is the only crop where growers have access to GM seeds but due to illegal marketing activities in the market, benefits of GM seeds could not be attained and the lint crops were badly damaged, he lamented.

Shakeel Ahmad of SAF was of the view that the Textile Ministry and Environmental Protection Agency should negotiate with companies dealing in cotton seed with the latest and most advanced technology to introduce varieties so the cotton growers could benefit from it.

Without certification from EPA, cotton seeds lead to new type of pest attacks. BT cotton crop should be sown with the locally researched seeds, he warned. The import, sale, purchase of living modified organism and genetically modified organisms is in violation of EPA 1997.

The country has experienced production shortfall to more than 3.25 million bales of cotton in 2016-17 crop season.

The textile mills and spinners in addition to private sector commercial importers had to make additional imports of around 150,000 cotton bales. Ahmad said Mainland China’s textile industry, according to International Cotton Advisory Committee would continue to drive world cotton use in 2017.