Govt asked to activate TCP for cotton buying

LAHORE: Perturbed over falling prices, growers have asked the government’s to activate Trading Corporation of Pakistan to start cotton buying at support price to save them from financial losses.

The federal government in March promised growers an intervention of support price of Rs8,500 per maund of raw cotton (phutti) on the advice of the textile industry, which had been pinched last year by the poor local crop production due to floods and heavy rains as well as falling per acre yield and higher rates on the international market.

The measure was announced before the setting in of the cotton season to woo back the farmers abandoning cotton sowing because of its increasing input costs but low market rates. Besides, a Rs1,000 per acre subsidy on seed was also offered as yet another incentive.

The policy worked well as the area under cotton cultivation increased to 6.9 million acres against less than 6m acres last season.

However, all hopes of growers to fetch a good price dashed to the ground as ginning factories began reducing their offered rates from June 15 onwards.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2023