Cotton arrivals at ginning stage dropped by 14 percent till September 1, 2022 as floods laid waste to billions of rupees’ worth of produce in Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan, while the country is estimated to fall short of this year’s target by four million bales, prompting need for imports to keep the textile sector spinning, suggests the data.
At present, the farming sector has passed through the worst destruction in two cotton-sowing provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. Some 80 percent cotton in Sindh has been perished, which is more or less 25 percent of the country’s total cotton production.
In addition, the entire cotton crop has been wiped out in the province of Balochistan. The province of Punjab has also got the hit in the districts of Rajanpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh, and Rahim Yar Khan. Attack of whitefly which causes a 60 percent reduction in cotton production is currently rampant in the Punjab province.
Secretary Agriculture, South Punjab, Saqib Ali Attil has however expressed hope that the province of Punjab is likely to witness better production this year.
“Some 145.64 percent more bales of cotton were produced in Multan district, while there had been a decline in cotton production in Rajanpur, where 75.76 percent fewer bales of cotton were picked till September 1,” he said.
