LAHORE: Unfavorable weather, a lack of irrigation water, and the government’s slow action to address growers’ concerns make the prospects for the upcoming cotton crop season gloomy.
Early cotton sowing in Sindh helped the crop mature before the heat stress of May and June of last season (2023–24); first picking had already taken place in many locations. The province made an effort to replicate the experience this year as well, but severe rains destroyed the fields that were sowed, forcing several cotton-growing regions to replant the crop.
After observing that early seeding in Sindh resulted in almost 100% higher production last year, the Punjab agriculture officials made the decision to follow suit this season. They asserted that early cotton cultivation had been introduced to more than a million acres. The total amount of lint acres, however, has been lowered from 5.2 million acres to 4 million acres this year.
A new problem for growers will be a thirty percent irrigation water deficit for kharif crops. In addition, the Federal Committee on Agriculture—which normally meets in the first two weeks of March—has not yet met to determine the acreage and production goals for the kharif crops.
It is surprising that, despite many years, the federal government has not yet established national production and cultivation targets for cotton. Additionally, it hasn’t disclosed the crop’s intervention price, says Ihsanul Haq, chairman of the Cotton Ginners Forum.
He claims that even though growers were unable to obtain a rate of Rs8,500 per maund previous season, Sindh has pushed federal authorities to establish the intervention price at Rs10,000 per maund.
Mahmood Nawaz Shah, president of the Sindh Abadgar Board, contends that farmers drop cotton because it is no longer economical, not because of a lack of water, as some have suggested.
He argues that the farming community would not have shifted to water-intensive rice and sugarcane crops if water problems were the main cause.
In the meantime, the prolonged Eidul Fitr festivities caused a decline in volume and pricing in the local cotton market.
Naseem Usman, chairman of the Karachi Cotton Brokers Association, blames the slump on drops in global prices, which forced the local textile sector to import lint.
