The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) has set the cotton production target at 11 million bales from the cultivation of over a 3.1 million hectares of land.
According to the committee meeting, was chaired by Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhr Imam, the production targets were fixed for important Kharif crops in 2022-23 expressing contentment over the availability of inputs mostly fertilizers and irrigation water.
It also noted that the wheat production during the outgoing rabi season showed a decrease of 2.5 percent over the last season.
The FCA was briefed that Punjab produced 65 percent of cotton while the rest was cultivated in Sindh. Almost 26 percent of farmers grow cotton, and more than 15 percent of the total cultivated land is given to this crop. However, a very small area comes under the cotton crop in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Read more: Over 7.4 million cotton bales reach ginning factories across Pakistan
Moreover, the meeting set 8.6 million tonnes production target for rice from an area of 3.1 million hectares.
The country harvested the highest rice production of 8.9 million tonnes during the last Kharif season, increasing from 8.4 million tonnes the last year.
It is worth mentioning that Pakistan is the 10th leading rice producer and the exports contribute to more than 8 percent of the world’s total rice trade.
Meanwhile, the mark for sugarcane, the third-largest Kharif crop, was fixed at 78.6 million tonnes covering an area of 1.2 million hectares for the 2022-23 season.
The FCA was also informed that the production of potatoes for 2021-22 has been projected at 7.74 million tonnes from an area of 0.3 million hectares, the rise in production is 34.8 percent over the last year.
The production achievements of other essential crops like lentils, gram, onion, and tomato were also discussed in the meeting.
With respect to the water availability for the Kharif season, the FCA was updated that water availability in canal heads will persist at 65.84 million acres’ feet (MAF) as compared to last year which was 65.08 MAF. Currently, all the provinces are receiving adequate supplies in the system.
