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Lahore
Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Cotton Crop Assessment Committee meeting in August

In the second week of August, Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) will meet to take stock of the output of major cash crop of the country during the current season.

Dr Khalid Abdullah, Cotton Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research informed that the restructuring of the new committee has been finalized and all stakeholders are on board to tackle the issues and challenges being faced by the cotton growers across the crop sowing areas of the country. He further added that to enhance the output of the crop by facilitating the farmers ad field extension departments, all four provinces, federal government and allied departments had also aligned for the streamlining of matters.

The farmers are now showing interest and are encouraged to put more land under cotton cultivation due to cotton being in good shape and stable prices.

Dr Khalid Abdullah remarked, “The cotton had been cultivated over 2.69 million hectares of land to produce 14 million cotton bales fixed during the current sowing season to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as for exporting, adding that crop sowing had registered about 1 percent increase across the crop producing areas of the country as compared the cultivation of corresponding period of last season”.

During the crop season 2018-19, to produce 14 million cotton bales, the cotton sowing targets had been fixed at 2.95 million hectares to fulfill the domestic requirements and exports. The crop cultivation targets were achieved by 91% and went up by 1% as compared to same period last year. Overall cotton sowing in the Province of Punjab registered about 11 percent growth as it had cultivated the crop over 2.29 million hectares of land as against the set targets of 2.31 million hectares for the period under review.

Meanwhile, the crop cultivation in Sindh was significantly reduced by 40% due to dry weather and shortage of water and Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were assigned a target to cultivate the crop over 0.1 million hectares.

During the 12 months of the fiscal year ended on June 20, 2018, the exports of raw cotton from the country registered over 33.65% which was about 35,347 metric tons of cotton worth US$ 58.227 million as growth compared to the exports of the corresponding duration of last year which was about 25,462 metric tons valuing US$ 43.567 million.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, during the same above mentioned period, 521,959 metric tons of cotton yarn worth US$ 1.371 billion was also exported as compared the 458,074 metric tons valuing US$ 1.243 billion.

About 11,690 metric tons of yarn other than cotton yarn worth US$ 33.411 million exported as against the 2,519 metric tons valuing US$ 24.063 million of same period of last year.

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