ISLAMABAD: Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) would meet in the second week of current month (August) in order to take stock of the output of major cash crop of the county during current season.
Restructuring of the committee has also been completed after the devolution of CCAC from the Ministry of Commerce to Ministry of National Food Security and Research, said Cotton Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research Dr Khalid Abdullah.
Talking to APP here on Wednesday, he said that formulation of new committee had been finalized and all the relevant stakeholders were taken on board in order to sensitize the issues and challenges being faced by the cotton growers across the crop sowing areas of the country.
He said that representation of all four provinces, federal government and allied departments working under the respective governments of had also be aligned for streamlining the matters related to enhance the output of the crop by facilitating the farmers and field extension departments.
Meanwhile, giving the over view of crop during current season, the Commissioner said that the cotton crop was in good shape and stability in prices in the domestic markets had enhance the interest in the crop and encouraged the farmers to put more land under cotton cultivation.
Besides, he informed that the federal government has imposed import duty on cotton, which would also help in price stabilization in the local markets.
“The cotton had been cultivated over 2.69 million hectares of land to produce 14 million cotton bales fixed during the current sowing season to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as for exporting, adding that crop sowing had registered about 1 percent increase across the crop producing areas of the country as compared the cultivation of corresponding period of last season,” he remarked.
The cotton sowing targets were fixed at 2.95 million hectares in order to produce over 14 million cotton bales during the crop season 2018-19 in order to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as for exporting.
He informed that the crop cultivation targets, which fixed for the current sowing season were achieved by over 91 percent as it went up by 1.0 percent as compared with the area under cotton crop cultivation during same period of last year.
He said that overall cotton sowing in the Province of Punjab registered about 11 percent growth as it had cultivated the crop over 2.29 million hectares of land as against the set targets of 2.31 million hectares for the period under review.
However, he informed that crop sowing in the Sindh Province was decreased by 40 percent and attributed the low sowing trend with dry weather during the crop sowing time as well as shortage of water for crop irrigation.
