MULTAN:Punjab agriculture department advised farmers to embrace the opening of formal cotton sowing season from Apr 1, Saturday, with sowing of only the registered and approved seed varieties that carry subsidy to cut their input cost country’s white gold.
Agriculture spokesman said on Friday that farmers should complete cotton sowing from April 1 to May 31 and advised them to sow only registered varieties to avail subsidy worth billions being offered by the provincial government. He said, every bag of selected registered seed varieties including BS-15, CIM-663, CKC-1, CKC-3, FH-490, IUB-2013, MNH-1020, NIBGE-11, Niab-545, Niab-878, Niab-1048, and Niab Kiran, carry a voucher inside that can be encashed from retailers to claim Rs 1000 per bag subsidy. Subsidy can be availed for sowing on maximum five acre area and farmers would be able to get seed bags from Punjab Seed Corporation and registered dealers on first come first served basis. He added that farmers should send their secret voucher number to 8070 as SMS in format ‘secret-voucher-number space identity-card-number’. Spokesman warned that sowing unregistered cotton varieties could result in losses. He said that farmers should cover their cotton area with at least 10 per cent non-Bt varieties so that pest do not develop resistance against safeguards introduced in Bt varieties.