ISLAMABAD: Federal Cotton Committee (FCC) will meet here on March 6 to review arrangements of cotton crop cultivation during the upcoming crop season (2017-18) across the cotton growing areas of the country.
Officials of federal ministries including national food security and research, textile industry and planning and development will attend the meeting, said Cotton Commissioner Dr Khalid Abdullah.
He said the representatives of other stakeholders including Federal Seed Certification Department, meteorological office, Indus River System Authority and Zari Tarqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) will also attend the meeting.
Indus River System Authority will present the water supply situation during the season while the meteorological office will apprise the meeting of the weather forecast and the precautionary measures for the crop to get the maximum output, he added.
Besides, he said that Sindh Seed Council will also meet on March 1 in which, new high yielding cotton seed varieties to be presented before the meeting for approval.
The council was considering 8 new varieties for approval for the coming crop season in order to enhance per acre crop output and maximize the farmers income, he added. Cotton Commissioner said that in order to avoid pest attacks on major cash crop of the country, ban was imposed on early crop cultivation before April 15, 2017.
In order to overcome any pest attack, Ministry of Textile Industry in collaboration with other stakeholders has launched a comprehensive training programme for cotton growers.
Dr Khalid Abdullah further said that off season pest management particularly controlling the pink ball worm were conducted to train the master trainers. Under the training programme, more then 500 master trainers were trained and tasked to further train the officials of field extension departments of the provinces to disseminate the training for the farmers at filed level in Punjab, he added.
The similar programme was also in progress in Sindh Province with an aim to improve the post cultivation managements of farmers for minimizing any pest attack on the crop, he added.
