Pakistan’s Punjab province has completed cotton sowing on 16 percent of the total area targeted by the Federal Cotton Committee (FCC) for the ongoing cotton season, Cotton Development Commissioner in the Ministry of Textile Industry Dr. Khalid Abdullah has said.
To satisfactorily cater to the domestic as well as export demand, FCC has set a target of planting cotton on six million acres of land in the province this season. For the purpose, the province has been divided into core, non-core and marginal areas.
Of the total targeted area, cultivation has been undertaken on 987,756 acres, which is 16 percent higher than 928,305 acres of land on which cotton was cultivated during the corresponding period of last year, the Commissioner said.
In core areas, cotton cultivation has increased by about 7.51 percent, as around 14.04 percent of the targeted cultivation has been achieved with the total cultivation acreage reaching 702,046 acres, he added, according to a Business Recorder report.
In non-core areas also crop cultivation on 14 percent of the targeted area equalling 242,569 acres has been completed, which is 3.01 percent higher than cultivation rates achieved during same period last year, Dr. Abdullah said.
For marginal areas too, cotton cultivation has been completed on 43,141 acres, which is 19.45 percent of the crop cultivation target, and also 8.3 percent higher than the area under cotton during the same period last year. Dr. Abdullah hoped that cotton sowing would increase in coming days as summers are getting hotter, and it is a favourable season for sowing cotton.
