Pakistan has established a cotton endowment fund to create indigenous resources for conducting research and development activities in the field of cotton across crop growing areas in the country. The aim is to generate internal resource to conduct research for producing high-yielding seed varieties and innovative technologies to produce over 15 billion cotton bales annually.

The fund would help bring more areas under cotton crop production. This year the area under cotton is expected to increase due to the reduction in sugarcane prices and stabilization of commodity prices in local markets. Meanwhile Pakistan has imported trap-ropes from Japan to guard the crop from possible pest attacks and get the maximum crop output during the season. These traps are being distributed among growers free of cost.

Also a pro-active approach has been adopted to enhance the per-acre crop output and stop the downward shift of crop production. Provision of certified seeds and pesticides is being ensured to exploit the existing crop production potential. Research is on for producing high yielding, disease resistant varieties of cotton seeds.

Pakistan imports almost five million cotton bales to fulfill its domestic requirements and these initiatives are expected to bridge the gap between demand and supply.