HYDERABAD: The country’s cotton output stood at 7.27 million bales as of Dec 15, showing a year-on-year increase of 44 per cent, the Pakistan Cotton Ginners’ Association (PCGA) reported on Saturday.

Of the total, Punjab’s cotton ginning factories produced 3.77 million bales, which was 27pc higher than 2.98m bales produced during the same period a year ago.

Sindh was not far behind and generated over 3.5m bales, an increase of 68pc compared to the same period last year when the output was little over 2m bales.

A bale of cotton in Pakistan weighs around 170kg.

Output in Punjab stands at 3.8m bales compared to 3.5m bales in Sindh

Sanghar district topped with cotton arrival figures of 1.3m bales, followed by Bahawalnagar district with 1.04m bales.

A total of 133 ginning factories are operational in the country, according to the PCGA.

Sindh’s output

The low cotton production in Sindh last year was mainly because of heavy rains in the Left Bank areas where cotton is commonly grown. Districts like Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Tando Allahyar and Umerkot were badly hit. In contrast, no major damages were reported to the cotton crop this year amid moderate monsoon rainfall.

“An increase in Sindh’s cotton output this year is mainly due to favourable weather and less rainfall, which remained crop-friendly. But the actual issues around the seed quality still remain unaddressed,” said Mahmood Nawaz Shah, the vice president of Sindh Abadgar Board.

Lal Chand, a cotton ginner, linked the higher production figures to better returns earned by growers last season amid a shortage of phutti (unginned cottonseed with the attached lint).

The country produced 12.9m bales during the 2009-10 period, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan. Sindh’s share that year was 4.2m bales, according to the Sindh agriculture department’s figures. Since then, the province has failed to achieve such production figures, which now hover around 3.2m to 3.5m bales.

This countrywide cotton production of 7.2m bales so far indicates that Pakistan would have to import cotton again to meet the textile industry’s requirement of around 8m.

Dr Yusuf Zafar, a former chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, called for taking the increase in cotton production as an opportunity. “We should not get complacent about these figures. Such production is largely due to weather and international market dynamics. The element of stability and sustainability still eludes our cotton sector,” he said.

Sindh has the Cotton Research Insti­tute (CRI) in Sakrand, which works un­der the Punjab-based Pakis­tan Cen­tral Cotton Committee (PCCC). How­ever, the CRI continues to face strength issues, with the federal government placing it under different ministries — commerce, textile and national food security — over the years. Currently, the institute is under the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

Nadeem Shah, a PCCC member from Sindh, said the CRI had produced some of its own cottonseed, which had led to better yields than Bt cotton.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2021