During a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Nazar Mohammad Gondal and Minister of Textiles, Mr Rana Farooq Ahmed, the Chairman of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) said that the government should encourage development of local cotton seed varieties as they were suitable for the local textile mills.
He said, the quality of local seeds were best and suited for producing quality yarn from the same. Among other issues, the meeting also decided to ban the cultivation of Bt cotton seeds procured from China as they were not able to resist pest attacks, which had been planted on a large scale in this cotton season.
A committee has also been formed to negotiate between the Ministry of Agriculture and Monsanto with regards to mechanism of royalty payment. The Agriculture Minister stressed on the need to launch at the earliest a local variety of Bt cotton seed as the cotton crop in this season has been badly hit by the Cotton Leaf Curl virus (CLVC).
The Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture had recently announced lowering of cotton crop production targets in the current cotton season, from 13.2 million bales (1 bale=175 kg) to 12 million bales, following large scale pest attacks on the standing crop in the cotton growing provinces of Sindh and Punjab.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India