Pakistan cotton crop second largest ever- US attache

[MirBadshah]

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Pakistan cotton crop second largest ever - US attache

Alhamdullilah

http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/news.asp?id=300747


May 31, 2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan's upcoming 2007/08 cotton crop forecast is 2.265 million metric tons (MMT, lint basis), the second largest ever, a U.S. attache in Islamabad said in a report released on Wednesday.

"Progressive textile mills are focusing on producing better-quality products, particularly for the export market. Pakistan is a major cotton importer, especially for U.S. upland and Pima cotton," the attache said.

Consumption is forecast at 2.736 MMT, marginally less than the previous year.

"With domestic prices increasing mills are finding the importation of upland cotton increasingly attractive. Recently, the GOP has allowed import of long staple cotton through land routes from India and Central Asia." Attache reports are not official USDA data. Following are highlights of the report. To see the full report, visit the USDA's Foreign

"Pakistan's MY 2007/08 cotton crop is off to a good start due in part to near normal weather conditions, accompanied by a sufficient supply of inputs."

"The crop is planted from the end April through June and is harvested in the fall. Planted area is influenced by the relative prices of competing crops, such as sugarcane and paddy, weather forecasts, and government policy. MY 2007/08 cotton area is forecast at 3.0 million hectares, about 1 percent less than the area planted last year, due to better returns from sugarcane and rice."

"Due to delays in establishing biosafety regulations and a desire to develop Bt varieties indigenously, sources estimate that Pakistan is ten years behind major cotton-producing
countries in the commercial use of Bt cotton.

"Last year, farmers planted an estimated 500,000 acres or about 5 percent of the crop in illegal Bt varieties, some of which were developed by a local institute; NIBGE where work on transgenic cultivar is under trial and most from pirated varieties from India, China, and Australia. This year, farmers are expected to plant about 30 percent of the crop in illegal Bt varieties."

[Shehz]

Cotton is an important cash crop for Pakistan known as "white gold". It accounts for 8.2 percent of the value added in agriculture and about 3.2 percent to GDP; around two thirds of the country’s export earnings are from the cotton made-up and textiles which adds over $2.5 billion to the national economy; while hundreds of ginning factories and textile mills in the country heavily depends upon cotton. Life of millions of farmers is dependent on this crop, in addition to millions of people employed along the entire cotton value chain, from weaving to textile and garment exports The area under the cultivation of cotton crops has been increased significantly in the last 30 years - around 7.85 million acres in 2005-06 as compared to 7.2 million acres in 2002-03. Beside being the world’s fourth-largest cotton producer and the third largest exporter of raw cotton and a leading exporter of yarn in the world our yield per acres ranks 13th in the world; as a result Pakistan annually imports around 1.5-2.00 million bales of cotton to meet growing demand from local textile mills; therefore it has become vital for Pakistan to increase its yield per acre.

If we look at the Pakistan scenario, two major types of pests are damaging our cotton crops – sucking and chewing; to certain extent it is easier to control sucking pest by strong pesticides but is very challenging to control chewing pests - Bollworms known as "Sundies" – American, Army, Pink and Spotted - cause major devastations in the cotton crop fields; as a result of this, overall both quality of lint and production of cotton have declined substantially.

There are many reasons for low yields of cotton crop in Pakistan - high price of agriculture inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides etc), higher intensity of insects and pests attack, shortage of good quality and varieties of seeds, deficiency of water for irrigation, lack of advance technologies, awareness and agro-professionalism, and adulterations in pesticides, fertilizers and seeds. It is unfortunate that there is no proper cotton crop insurance system available in Pakistan, while government does not provide any support or subsidy to cotton growers for inputs - resulted in frustration and lack of motivation in cotton growers. Farmers are facing with a number of risks till marketing of their crops including unexpected factors like inflation, high price of energy, unfair competition and speculation in open market by big cotton buyers. Although, government claims that they have excellent micro-economy policy to improve the livelihood of farmers and elimination of poverty in rural area through bank-loans offered to the farmers, however, the interest rates are fairly high.

Said that, Pakistan's produce in agricuture has improved tremendously, first Wheat, and now a bumper Cotton crop!

[Interceptor]

Thats good contributions Shehz it is very detailed.

Without any doubt Pakistan has one of the largest cotton industries but it has been misused if the Pakistanis could invest on the areas of Fashion, I mean look at the profits on clothing it is just rediciouless what people would pay for them. The idea that India has taken up to an extreme level they're fashion statement is known world wide, and companies are investing more on there industry and making factories that export clothes world wide.

[Neo]

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Good indeed but we could do better. Considering the size of the land available for cultivation of cotton I'd say we could atleast increase the yield hence production by atleast 50% by introducing GM seeds and crops and improved watter manangement.

Though we've seen the production double in last two decades there's room for improvement.
The yield in Pakistan btw is 30% higher than India.