LAHORE: A drastic drop in cotton production and a significant variation in the crop production data of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) and Punjab’s Crop Reporting Service have worried the local textile industry, which is hurrying towards foreign markets to meet its yarn requirements.

The data released by the PCGA on Sunday revealed that a total of 1.075 million bales have been produced in the country till August 15 this season, compared to 2.11m bales during the same period last year, a drop of almost 50 per cent.

Punjab produced about 392,000 bales, Sindh 682,000 bales and Balochistan about 26,000 bales, as per PCGA statistics.

The Crop Reporting Service of Punjab, however, put the cotton production data at 636,000 bales in the province that is close to the output of Sindh and around 62pc higher than what is reported by the ginners’ body. However, even then the output is 19.4pc less than that of last year’s for this period.

Justifying the figures, a CRS official says that so far 40pc of crop has been picked in the province against 52pc picking by this time last year, whereas this year 0.87pc increase in the weight of cotton bolls (3.46g against 3.43g during 2022-23 crop year) has been recorded.

Cotton Ginners Forum chairman Ihsanul Haq says the difference in the figures of two reliable bodies is very much worrying for the cotton stakeholders, particularly the textile industry which is in a fix which report to believe for devising its lint import strategy.

Reports suggest that major textile players have signed agreements for import of cotton from the United States, Brazil, Tanzania and Afghanistan, and that Pakistan was the largest US cotton importer with 47,800 bales during the week ending Aug 8, he adds.

Karachi Cotton Brokers Forum’s Naseem Usman says as the local textile industry requires at least 12.5m cotton bales, the country will need to import 3.5m bales to overcome the shortfall in the local production, which is likely to remain around 8.0 to 8.5m bales.

This statistics is very worrying for the national economy and the cotton industry. This year the production target has been set at around 11m bales which does not seem to be achieved.

Experts say long duration of heat waves in the months of June and July caused shedding of fruit and flowers by the plants, while heavy rains across the country, especially in the cotton belt, was an added damage to the crop only to be followed by the whitefly attack.

A shrinking crop acreage because of unjust prices of their produce, manipulation of the price mechanism by some players in the market, non-announcement of support price by the government, increasing cost of production, use of substandard seed by the growers, and a lack of investment in research and development are the other reasons being put forward for the decline in cotton output.

“We are being given the examples of [better farm produce in] India but being given resources like Cambodia, and are expecting good production like China,” laments Sajid Mahmood, head of Technology Transfer Department at Central Cotton Research Institute, Multan.

Pointing towards poor funding for research and development, he calls for joint efforts by the textile industry, government and research institutions on urgent basis for the promotion of cotton.

Pakistan Central Cotton Committee vice-president fears that the crop output may further fall if the government continues to ignore R&D, rule of middlemen in the market and payment of unjust prices to the growers.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024