KARACHI: The leading stakeholders of cotton sector have urged Ministry of Textile and Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) for taking corrective measures to avoid possible damage to crop following recent rains and possible virus attack. Representatives from All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association, Karachi Cotton Association, Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association and Sindh Agriculture Forum to provide technical assistance to growers and provincial research and extension officials for better scouting standing crops in Sindh and Punjab stations besides provision of certified cotton seed. The representative from Crop Reporting Service Department Punjab also informed some cotton growing areas have been reported prone to virus attack. CCAC has already set 13.75 cotton bales for crop season 2017-18, while cotton was sown over 2.950 million hectares depicting 3 percent less than the target However, the current rains could possibly damage standing cotton crop in parts of Punjab and Sindh stations. However the chances of Cotton Leaf Curl Virus attack could be controled to maximum extent but boll worm and mealy bug damage on crop could not be ruled out. The Punjab province was expected to produce around 10.18 million bales of 170 kilogrammes while Sindh to produce around 3.69 million bales. Farmer members from Punjab stressed for intervention of Trading Corporation of Pakistan at the earliest as cotton season was ending soon. The benefit of intervention price for seed cotton should be assured for farmers, they maintained. Rana Abdul Sattar (PCGA), Ghulam Rabbani (PYMA), Shakeel Ahmad of Agri Forum and Qamar Qureshi of Economic Forum Pakistan were of the view that agri-scientists to check the effects of pesticides in oil and cake produced through cotton crop by applying a number of poisonous sprays. Pakistan is a signatory to various international laws/obligations so we should focus on producing better cotton which could not only benefit farmers in reducing cost of production but also be exported at higher prices. The representative from Agriculture Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said cotton crop was sown at an area of 3,690 hectares. Farmers of the area were not much educated in cotton crop management and due to non-existence of cotton ginning factories in the province thus farmers were reluctant to grow cotton. Published in Daily Times, July 5th , 2017.