Karachi, December 24, 2018 (PPI-OT): The Karachi Cotton Association has welcomed the directives issued by the Prime Minister of Pakistan to the Ministry of National Food Security and Research to take measures to achieve the production target of 15.00 million bales of cotton and set-up a working group to revamp existing Seed Registration Institutes to bring improvement in their outputs. The KCA is of the view that Pakistan has a great potential to increase cotton production by taking concrete and effective measures in right direction by the Government.
The KCA is also of the view that there is a dire need to increase cotton production upto 20.0 million bales to meet the rising requirement of local textile industry and leave adequate surplus for export to earn much needed foreign exchange for the country as due to devastating cotton crop failure in cotton season 2015-16 and shortfall in cotton crop 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, the local textile mills were compelled to import raw cotton from abroad to meet their requirements of basic raw material.
In order to increase cotton production and avoid import of cotton from abroad, the KCA recommends to the Government (i) to mobilize all resources at Federal and Provincial level to bring more area under cotton cultivation, most particularly, in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, (ii) increase yield per acre, (iii) ensure to produce and supply of Certified Cotton Seed /BT Seed to the growers for cultivation, (Iv) provide education to growers to switchover to modern integrated pest management system, (v) place ban on cultivation of Paddy/Sugarcane and setting-up of Sugar mills in the areas already earmarked for cultivation of cotton, (vi) revamp / gear-up all the Cotton Research Institutes to evolve high yield / virus resistance cotton seed varieties for cultivation, (vii) take measures to import pure and certified pesticides in small packing instead of bulk in order to avoid adulteration, (viii) advice the cotton growers and the ginners to switchover to modern farming and ginning practices year after year to increase cotton production and improve quality of cotton and (ix) implement Cotton Control Act in letter and spirit.
For more information, contact:
The Karachi Cotton Association
The Cotton Exchange I.I Chundrigar Road,
Karachi, Pakistan
Phone: +92-21-3242-5007, + 92-21-3241-2570, +92-21-3242-5018
Fax: +92-21-3241-3035
Email: contact@kcapak.org, kcapak@cyber.net.pk
Website: http://www.kcapk.org