By Ijaz Kakakhel
ISLAMABAD: The cotton output in the country is likely to be lower by 18.5 percent than target because of floods sources told Daily Times on Friday. The government had targeted 14.11 million bales but now only 11.5 million bales production is expected .
Devastating floods and heavy rains severely damaged the cotton crop in the country. Flood-affected areas in Punjab are estimated at 1.415 million acres (1415.6 thousand acres) while in Sindh it is about 303.2 thousand acres. Total area damaged is calculated at about 1.719 million acres (1719.8 thousand acres). Pakistan’s cotton crop production is estimated at 11.5 to 11.7 million bales by considering the crop damage in Sindh and Punjab.
About 1719.7 thousand acres of cotton crop has been estimated to be affected by floods and the remaining 6035.9 thousand acres of crop is estimated to be safe out of the total sown area of 77.59.6 thousand acres. The cotton crop production is estimated at 11.5 million bales by considering crop damage due to floods in cotton tracts of Punjab and Sindh against the potential production of 13.860 million bales under the current year sown area.
Apart from flood damages, the sources further said that pest attack was also witnessed in the second week of July 2010 and continued its growth. However, the incidence of Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) remained higher than the previous year up to 62.37 percent. Early sown Bt varieties in Punjab started yielding in the month of June and seed cotton arrivals started arriving at the cotton ginneries in Punjab in the first week of July. Simultaneously, seed cotton arrivals started arriving at ginneries in lower Sindh, like Sanghar and Mirpurkhas districts. The pace of seed cotton arrival remained milder in Sindh and faster in Punjab. Prior to floods more than 400,000 cotton bales arrived at the ginneries both in Punjab and Sindh.
The government has fixed the second cotton intervention price for 2010-11, at Rs 1,465 per 40 kilogrammes (kg) prevailing market prices of seed cotton (phutti) are as, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar have Rs 2,800, Mian Channu Rs 2,200-3,175, Vehari Rs 2,900-3,200, Burewala Rs 2,800-3,300, Rahim Yar Khan Rs 2,400-3,027, Sahiwal Rs 3,000- 3,200 and Khanewal Rs 2,900 to Rs 3,150 per 40 kg.
At global level, the cotton production estimates are 115.9 million bales for the year 2010-11 as against 100.41 million bales production last year. Main producer at world level is China with production estimate at 32.5 million bales, India 25.4 million bales, USA 18.7 million bales, while in case of Pakistan estimation is 10 million bales instead of 11.5 million bales claimed by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Brazil is likely to contribute 6.8 million bales cotton crop, Uzbekistan 4.7 million bales, and other contribution by small countries would add about 17.7 million bales. The International Cotton Advisory Committee, Washington in August 2010 forecast about 114.4 million bales cotton demand at global level.
