ISLAMABAD: Cotton output has declined by 7 percent during past seven years owing to sharp decline in the sowing area, reported by Economic Survey 2016/2017.
According to data revealed by the survey regarding production of important crops, the cotton output was 11.46 million bales in 2010/2011 which was declined to provisional figures of 10.67 million bales in 2016/2017.
The survey said that during 2016-2017, cotton production was estimated at 10.67 million bales registering 7.6 percent increase over the production of 9.917 million bales during 2015-2016 but was lower than the target of 14.1 million bales by a considerable margin.
Cotton crop has 1.0 percent share in GDP and contributes 5.2 percent in agriculture value addition. The weaker than expected recovery in cotton production is mainly due to a sharp decline of 14.2 percent in the sowing area which stood at 2489 thousand hectares during 2016 compared to 2902 thousand hectares during the corresponding period of last year due to exceptional losses from previous year’s pest infestation and low domestic prices at the sowing time that pushed growers away from cotton to other competitive crops (sugarcane and maize).
However, the production of sugarcane, rice and maize posted growth during the past seven years. On the other hand the production of wheat was almost stagnant.
