LAHORE, Oct 10: Based on the results of early picking data from 12 districts, the Punjab government hopes to achieve the target of eight million bales.

Talking to Dawn here on Friday, Punjab Agriculture secretary Arif Nadeem claimed that figures, though purely indicative at this early, did leave some room for optimism. Out of 12 district, the results suggest upward trend in five, downward in five and two neutral when compared with the last year’s production figures.

The most affected district, Rahim Yar Khan, produces around 1.2 million bales. This year, the department expects it to go down to 1.1 million bales. But other two affected districts of Multan and Sahiwal may not perform as badly as being feared by some, he said.

“In early August, the government was hoping for at least 15 per cent increase in production. But, the month of September, due to unprecedented rains, punctured that early optimism. Now, the hope is that final yield would be hovering around the figure of eight million bales; may be slightly more.”

The secretary agriculture claimed that his assessment of achieving the target was also based on increase in acreage under cotton cultivation this year. It went up by 0.6 million acre — from 5.3 million acre last year to 5.99 this season. The pest attack was there, and so was shortage of pesticides. But both of them were not severe enough to badly affect the final production, he claimed.

Mr Arif also refuted the blame by the growers that pest attack was mishandled at the policy level. No individual makes the policy; four government institutions, hefty number of experts and growers sit together to hammer out the strategy. Of course, they cannot come up with a strategy that works with computerized accuracy because of complexities of crop and vagaries of nature.

Both played their part to upset early optimism this year. But one must accept the fact that the mechanism is there for the many years and has stood test of time. All the decisions are taken after consensus and they have proven accurate more often then, not, he insisted.

Speaking about mishandling of pesticides inventory in Punjab, the secretary claimed that the department neither controlled the stocks nor the importers. The department does not produce data for the importers. It collects and releases data for all the stakeholders. In addition to departmental figures, the importers also have their own mechanism in field and market and try to adjust their inventory accordingly.

It is in their financial interest to update stocks as per need of the growers. But, one must give them time margin of import span. Pesticides are not off the shelf purchase; they have to import them which is a time consuming job, Mr Arif added.