Americans help Pak scientists, farmers combat cotton disease

ISLAMABAD - Five American scientists traveled to Pakistan to help Pakistani scientists and farmers combat cotton disease, which has infected cotton throughout Pakistan’s cotton belt and can substantially reduce yields and farmers incomes. American and Pakistani scientists, in coordination with Pakistan’s Ministry of Textile and Industry and the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), organized a workshop on “Enhancing Cotton Germplasm, improving Resistance to Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) Disease supporting Cotton (BMPs) for small farmers and Capacity Building of Pakistani Cotton Reserachers” at National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), Park Road, Chak shahzad, Islamabad on 3rd and 4th September to develop solutions to the Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) problem in Pakistan. This workshop was part of the US government sponsored Cotton Productivity Enhancement Program. In his remarks, Todd Drennan, US Agriculture Counselor said “Agriculture touches so many lives in Pakistan and is a vital part of Pakistan’s economy. The United States wants to help enhance the productivity of Pakistan’s agricultural sector, especially small farmers. This cooperation between US and Pakistani scientists on cotton is an example of that commitment”.The workshop completes a ten days by the American technical team. The team met Pakistani cotton scientists to discuss the results of research on CLCV. The team also visited cotton breeding trails in Faisalabad and Multan. As a result of these trails, which are funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) the team reported good news that some new varieties of cotton are showing preliminary signal of resistance to CLCV.Small farmers are especially vulnerable to the economic impacts caused by this disease. Because of this, the US Department of Agriculture has designed the cotton disease research project to help Pakistani farmers. American agricultural scientists continually visit Pakistan to collaborate on research to combat disease affecting Pakistan’s principal crops, especially cotton and wheat. APP adds from Multan: Over 1.7 million bales of cotton have reached ginneries across Pakistan by Sept 1, says a fortnightly report issued by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) here on Monday.According to the first fortnightly PCGA report, cotton arrival was recorded at 1,731,245 bales and 1,557,114 bales were ginned. Arrivals from Punjab was recorded at 967,654 bales and in Sindh, it stood at 763,591 bales till Sept 1.The report said that exporters had bought 2,000 bales of cotton including 800 bales from Punjab and 1200 from Sindh. Textile millers have bought 1,507,767 bales so far and the total sold-out stock stood at 1,509,767 bales. The stock of unsold bales was recorded at 221,476, the report added.

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