ISLAMABAD:Owing to incentives introduced by the government to encourage cotton sowing in the country, crop cultivation has witnessed about 6.9 percent increase during crop season 2022-23 as compared to the corresponding period of last year.
The sowing targets were achieved by 81.3 percent as cultivation completed over 2 million hectares as against the set targets of 2.461 million hectares, which was recorded at 1.187 million hectares during last season.
However, crop sowing remained bellow than the targets fixed for current season as cotton was cultivated over 2.00 million hectares as compared to set targets of 2.461 million hectares set for current season, said Cotton Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research Dr Khalid Abdullah.
Talking to reporter here on Monday, he said that according to first estimate, Punjab Province has achieved about 81.5 percent of sowing targets as it completed cotton cultivation over 1.485 million hectares as against the set targets of 1.821 million hectares of last year.
The cotton sowing in Punjab witnessed about 16 percent growth during current season as compared to the sowing of last season, he said adding that area under crop sowing would further strengthened as prices of the commodity remained on increasing trajectory throughout last season.
He said this trend had encouraged farmers to cultivated crop over more areas for profit maximization, adding that the other factor that contributed in growth was international prices of the commodity.
Meanwhile, Sindh, which is another largest cotton producing province of the country achieved 80.5 percent of its sowing targets as and cultivated crop over 0.515 million hectares as against the set targets of 0.640 million hectares of last year, he added.
It is worth mentioning here that exports of raw cotton from the country during fiscal year 2022 witnessed about 714.94 percent increase as 2,752 metric tons of cotton valuing $6.577 million exported as compared 594 metric tons costing $0.807 million of same period last year.
During the period under review, cotton yarn valuing 1.206 billion also exported as against the exports of $1.016 billion of same period last year.