cotton
The government has chosen to concentrate on white lint in order to restore the most significant cash crop of the Kharif season and, as a result, the textile sector in order to lower its import bill, LAHORE: Encouraged by the successful wheat harvest.
To meet the above 8.2 million bale output goal for this season, the Punjab government has decided to give irrigation water to cotton fields a top priority.
On Monday, Iftikhar Ali Sahoo, the secretary for agriculture, met with Wasif Khurshid, the secretary for irrigation, at the latter’s office to talk through a strategy for securing water supply in the canals of south Punjab during the present cotton crop.
Additionally present were Chief Engineer Habibullah Bodla, Deputy Director Muhammad Adeel, and Director-General Agriculture (Extension), Dr. Muhammad Anjum Ali.
According to Mr. Khurshid, the irrigation administration is prioritising giving south Punjab with more water than its fair share so that cotton may be seeded across the greatest possible region.
According to him, the south Punjab canals are receiving 53,000 cusecs of water compared to their allocation of 45,000 cusecs, despite the Punjab irrigation department experiencing a system-wide shortfall of over 27% this year.
According to Mr. Sahoo, south Punjab has 4.554 million acres under cotton cultivation, or 91% of the province’s overall objective.
He claimed that enough water resources are necessary to grow cotton as intended.
In order to ensure a consistent and uninterrupted supply of canal water to the farmers in south Punjab, the meeting participants decided to jointly monitor the officers of the agriculture and irrigation departments regarding the availability of water during the cotton season. They also agreed to immediately report incidents of water theft and take legal action against offenders.
The province administration created the Cotton Action Plan 2023–24 in an effort to generate $3 billion in foreign cash, according to the plan. The district administration, the agricultural department, and other interested parties are collaborating on the difficult job of expanding the area under cotton production, which recurrent.
Mr Sahoo has given the field employees of the extension and pest warning wings instructions to give farmers technical direction and help as well as to collate all of the farmers’ data.
The government has also declared that it would run a cotton production competition among the farmers, wherein those who harvest an exceptional crop will be given cash rewards worth millions of rupees at the provincial and district levels, in an effort to promote cotton growing.
