Punjab Govt to boost cotton acreage in non-conventional areas

14 Mar '11

2 min read

In a bid to offer the farmers in the non-conventional areas a higher crop dividend, particularly when the cotton prices are touching record high levels, and to conserve the reducing ground water resources, the Punjab government has resolved to encourage cotton cultivation in those non-conventional areas of the State.

The Punjab Agriculture Extension Department has been delegated with the responsibility to encourage the crop cultivators in Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Lahore, Sargodha, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi to engage in cultivation of modern crop varieties which could survive the humid weather of these regions. At present, around 800,000 acres of land in the six regions is under cotton cultivation, a majority of which is in Sahiwal and Faisalabad.

For the first phase of this cotton cultivation campaign, the government aims to raise the cotton cultivation acreage in the six regions by at least 30 percent, as over the previous year.

Thus, it has decided to carry the present crop dividends even to the farmers in other climatic zones. Also, a one-day training programme for imparting training to the master trainers from all the non conventional areas was organised at Faisalabad's Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI).

These master trainers will now carry forward this training to the extension agents, who would further carry forward this training to new, perceptive and potential cotton cultivators, particularly in the regions with good rains or adequate water supply, who can take on cotton cultivation in accordance with the latest production technology package.

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