Preparation of cotton crop calendar for Bahawalpur, Multan ordered

MULTAN: South Punjab Agriculture Secretary Saqib Ali Ateel has directed to make cotton crop calendar exclusively for Multan,

Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions.

He was presiding over a cotton review committee meeting at the committee room of the agriculture secretariat here on Tuesday.

The secretary underlined the need for making cash crop cotton more profitable and productive that would not only boost export of textile but also bring prosperity in agriculture.

He said that Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur divisions were cotton growing areas and the Agriculture Department should develop a separate crop calendar for each division because each division had different crop patrons.

The South Punjab Agriculture secretary said that all the relevant agriculture departments and their sub-sections should perform their activities according to the calendar. Their activities would be monitored carefully, he maintained.

He assured that a transparent system would be evolved for cotton seed preparation before the next cotton crop to intact purity in seed and overcoming other problems. He said that agriculture experts were being consulted to develop quality seed of cotton.

He stressed upon adopting a mechanism to ensure traceability of cotton seeds prepared at the Punjab Seed Corporation farms.

He ordered the agriculture officials to launch an aggressive campaign against pink bollworm.

He asked the agriculture scientists to design a plan for the next three years.

The advanced research in the field of cotton was the only source of boosting cotton and increasing productivity in the future, he added.

He underlined the need for introducing a system, which can help assess the results of research on quarterly basis.

The research quarterly review meetings would be held on a regular basis and agriculture scientists would have to answer in those meetings about targets, he told.

He said that pesticides and cotton varieties had lost their potential. He stressed upon agriculture scientists to focus and develop virus, pest resistant climate smart cotton seed varieties.

He said that there was no scarcity of financial resources for applied research but cotton growers were not satisfied with the standards and quality of present research parameters.

Saqib Ali said that foolproof strategy was being evolved for the better management of pink bollworm.

He said that long, medium and short policies were being introduced for cotton uplift.

The meeting was attended by Muhammad Nawaz Sharif University of Agriculture Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asif Ali, Directors Dr Saghir Ahmed, Jamshed Khalid, Sabir Shehzad, Shahid Hussain, Zafarullah Sindhu, Naveed Ismat Kahlon and farmers Khalid Mahmood Khokhar, Syed Hassan Raza, Rana Ziaul Haq and Muhammad Ilyas Arain.

Earlier, the South Punjab Agriculture secretary visited the offices of Agriculture Mechanization Research Institute and Agriculture Engineering.

He checked the attendance and cleanliness situation and he warned the officials to improve their office hours and duties.