The government has approved a cotton intervention price of Rs 5,000/40kg for cotton crop 2021-22 in a bid to encourage farmers.
During the outgoing fiscal year, Pakistan was amongst the few countries of the world which could manage to keep economic activities in running condition. Pakistan’s GDP was around 4% in the year 2020-21 at the time when its neighboring countries such India, Bangladesh, and China were facing adverse economic issues due to the worst condition of Covid-19.
Large Scale Manufacturing in Pakistan grew well. The textile sector showed extremely good performance but the drawback in the form of the shortage of cotton stood in the way of this sector. Pakistan imported a bulk quantity of cotton in the outgoing fiscal year as farmers grew quite a lesser quantity of cotton due to different reasons.
Read more: Cotton import bill rise by 44% during 11 months of outgoing financial year
The Minister for National Food Security and Research, Syed Fakhar Imam, while addressing a press conference on Wednesday, said that the government has fixed the intervention price of cotton at Rs 5,000 per 40 kg so as to increase the production of cotton in the country.
He said that the intervention price would encourage the farmers to increase the area for the cotton crop which has been reducing for the last few years. The Federal Minister said that in the last meeting of the federal cabinet, the approval of setting the intervention price of cotton at Rs 5,000 per 40 kg has been given.
Syed Fakhar Imam told the press conference that the government’s focus is on the cotton revival program which is going to be introduced soon. Under this program, primarily, farmers would be provided quality input for cotton especially cottonseed and pesticides along with the modernization of ginning technology.
He said that the Trading Corporation of Pakistan would purchase 200,000 bales of cotton initially from the farmers so that the farmers could get direct befits from this procurement.
In the last fiscal year, cotton was grown on 2,079 thousand hectares while in the year 2019-20, 2,517 thousand hectares areas were brought under cultivation of the cotton crop. This shows a reduction of 17.4%. The target of producing 10.51 million bales of cotton has been set for the current fiscal year from 2.32 million hectares in all the provinces.
