Cotton farmers claim govt rigs crop size to benefit millers

LAHORE: Cotton farmers on Saturday accused the government of deliberately overestimating the size of the crop in the middle of the harvesting season to drive down prices and benefit textile millers from cheap raw material.

They were reacting to a statement by the caretaker minister for Industries and Commerce, Dr. Gohar Ejaz, who projected a healthy size of cotton crop at 12 million bales this year, which includes 8 million bales from Punjab and 4 million bales from Sindh.

Ejaz, who is also the patron-in-chief of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), lauded the measures taken by the provincial government that helped Pakistan regain its position among the top cotton producers in the world.

But Kissan Board Pakistan (KBP), a farmers’ body, strongly condemned what it called wrongly portraying a pest-infested cotton crop as a very healthy one.

“Such projections on the part of high-ups and provincial agriculture department are only adding salt to the wounds of cotton growers who are made to sell their crop at throwaway prices - much less than Rs 8,500 per maund fixed as the minimum support price by the federal government,” Haji Ramzan, KBP spokesperson, said.

Ramzan termed such an attempt a glaring example of conflict of interest as textile millers would directly get benefited due to manipulation of cotton market.

He claimed that cotton production in Punjab would hardly be around 6 million bales.

“No doubt crop size is better than last year’s flood-ravaged cotton crop in the province, however severe pest attack has badly hit plants and negatively impacted its yield,” Ramzan said. “Above all, we wonder why the minister and provincial chief minister want to jump the gun and don’t wait for the final assessment about the cotton production figure.”

Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI), another farmers’ group, also contradicted the cotton production figures presented by the federal and provincial governments.

Khalid Khokhar, president of PKI, claimed that cotton price has already nosedived to Rs 7,500 per maund and may slide further to Rs 7,000 after the statements of the federal minister and Punjab chief minister.

The farmer leader asked government functionaries to exercise utmost caution while uttering words about the size of cotton crop. “Being responsible representatives of federal and provincial governments, they should first think before speaking about sensitive issues concerning farming community,” he said.

"The commerce minister projected Punjab production at 8 million bales and countrywide output at 12 million bales, which is not true," Khokhar insisted.

He said that Punjab cotton production would not be more than around 6 million bales and national production would nearly be 9 million bales.