Pakistan faces 43% decline in cotton Production
Islamabad
The country is going to face a historical decline in cotton production by 43.08 percent to 6.3 million bales for 2022-23.
Pakistan faces a historical decline in cotton production of 43 percent to 6.3 million bales for the year 2022-23.
A High-Powered Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) was informed on Thursday that cotton production is estimated at 6.3 million bales from an area of 2.1 million hectares showing a decrease of 43.08% in production over the last year.
A High-Powered Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) meeting for Rabi Season (2022-23) was held on Thursday under the Chairmanship of Ch. Tariq Bashir Cheema, Federal Minister for National Food Security & Research.
The Federal Minister, NFS&R in his opening remarks informed that Pakistan faced a heavy monsoon spell from July to August. These substantial rains and floods have caused heavy damage to the agriculture sector of the country. All crops, especially in Sindh and Balochistan were damaged very badly.
Due to this, the prices of all essential food items had reached the highest level. To cater for this worst situation of unavailability of essential food items in local markets this Ministry with M/o Commerce took up the matter and facilitate the import of essential food items on a fast-track basis to maintain the supply at reasonable prices to consumers. He further informed that this situation also affected the production of Kharif crops in 2022-23.
Production achievements of major and minor crops like wheat, Mash, Gram, Potato, Lentil, Onion, Tomato and chillies were also discussed in the meeting. The Committee has fixed the production target for Rabi (2022-23). The target for wheat was fixed at 28.4 million tons on an area of 9.3 million hectares. Whereas, the production targets for Gram, Potato, Onion and Tomato are fixed at 560, 6029, 2422 and 622 thousand tons respectively.
The seed availability for Rabi Crops was also discussed in the house and it was informed by FSC&RD that certified seed availability for Rabi Crops increased by 14% as compared to the last year.
For Rabi 2022-23, IRSA Advisory Committee has anticipated a shortfall of 18%. During the Rabi season, provinces are allocated 30.25 MAF of water. Prevailing weather conditions are supportive and the shortage is manageable.
Metrological Department informed that summer monsoon 2022 rainfall remains significantly above normal (175%) overall in the country. Balochistan and Sindh provinces received a record-breaking amount of rainfall in July and August 2022 with positive anomaly 450% and 426%, while KPK, GB and Punjab received 33%, 104% and 70% above normal respectively.
The weather outlook for the period October – December 2022 suggests that the amount of rainfall is likely to be below normal over the country. Northern Punjab, KPK, GB and AJK are likely to receive below-normal rainfall while near-normal rainfall is expected in the rest of the country during the period.
The agricultural lending institutions registered promising agriculture lending performance during the financial year 2021-22 by disbursing Rs.1,419 billion against the annual target of Rs. 1,700 billion for the year; recording a Year-to-year growth of 4%, despite the ongoing challenges posed by Climate change, Geographical of disparity and high cost of production.
In order to move forward the government agenda for the promotion of the agriculture sector, the State Bank of Pakistan has assigned an annual indicate agricultural credit disbursement target of Rs. 1800 billion for the financial year 2022-23 to 46 institutions on a provisional basis from July-August 2022 (FY2022-23).
The agricultural lending institution disbursed Rs. 226.1 billion, which is 12.6% of the overall annual target of 31.8% higher than the disbursement of Rs. 171.6 billion made during the same period of last year. The house also informed that during the upcoming Rabi 2022-23 (November – December 2022) supply of urea and DAP is expected to remain stable.
