History of Cotton What is Cotton?

Cotton, belonging to a family that includes hibiscus and okra, produces anatural vegetable fiber used in the manufacture of cloth. Cotton producessweet nectar that attracts a variety of destructive insect pests, includingthe boll weevil, bollworm, armyworm, and the red spider. In addition toinsect pests, there is also a very destructive fungus, called the wilt thatattacks the root system of the cotton plant. Species A few species are grown commercially; these range from a small tree of Asia, to the common American Upland cotton, a low, multi branched shrubthat is grown as an annual. Another species includes the long-fiberEgyptian and Sea Island cottons botanically derived from the Egyptianspecies brought to the United States about 1900. Sea Island cotton thrivesin the unique climate of the Sea Islands, located off the southeasterncoast of the United States, and on the islands of the West Indies such asBarbados. As with Egyptian cotton, the fiber is white and lustrous but itsfiber length is longer than that of any other type of cotton, which permitsthe spinning of extremely fine yarns. Pima, originally called American-Egyptian cotton, is a hybrid type. It is the only variety of long-fiber cottonnow grown in commercially significant quantities in the United States,where it is cultivated under irrigation in the Southwest. Foot Steps It is almost impossible to determine the original habitats of the variousspecies of cotton. Scientists have determined fiber and boll fragmentsfrom the Tehuacn Valley of Mexico to be about 7000 years old. Theplant has certainly been grown and used in India for at least 5000 yearsand probably for much longer. Cotton was used also by the ancientChinese, Egyptians, and North and South Americans. It was one of the earliest crops grown by European settlers, having been planted at the Jamestown colony in 1607.Cotton was the most important crop in South before the American CivilWar (1861-1865). Slaves usually worked all day picking cotton for theirmasters while overseers watched from their horses. History of Cotton Ginning The cotton gin, invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney, was designed to separateraw cotton fibers from seeds and other foreign materials prior to balingand marketing. The design was so efficient that it remains virtuallyunchanged to the present day.American Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, a device that rapidly andeffectively removes seeds from cotton fiber. This task had previously beendone by hand, making fiber processing slow and expensive. The inventionwill help spur expansion of the cotton industry in the southern UnitedStates. The South as booming cotton economy in turn will increase thereliance on slaves, owing to the labor-intensive character of cottonharvesting.Although the invention of the cotton gin changed history, its inventor, EliWhitney, did not reap much of a profit. The gin made cotton cleaning so

PAKISTAN ECONOMY M.Rahim Ejaz HASNAIN IRFAN COTTON AND GINNERS

efficient that the crop became a primary enterprise for the South.However, patent disputes and supply problems kept Whitney fromsuccessfully producing the cotton gin. His later venture into armsmanufacturing was more fruitful, and Whitney became a strong promoterof mass production and interchangeable parts. The role of the cotton gin has changed dramatically in the last 50 years tokeep up with technological and production changes in the cotton industry.At one time, the gin's only function was to remove cottonseed from thefiber. Today, gins must not only separate the seed from the fiber,they must also dry and clean the fiber and package it into bales before itreaches the textile mill.All gins differ in some aspects of the ginning process. In the Southwest, forinstance, gins are equipped with both saw and roller gins: saw gins forginning Upland cottons, and roller gins for ginning Pima cotton, a cottongrown almost exclusively in this region of the Cotton Belt. Elsewhere inthe Cotton Belt, gins use only saw gins in their operation. Role of cotton in Pakistan Pakistan is the fifth largest producer of cotton in the world, the thirdlargest exporter of raw cotton, the fourth largest consumer of cotton, andthe largest exporter of cotton yarn. 1.3 million Farmers (out of a total of 5million) cultivate cotton over 3 million hectares, covering 15 per cent of the cultivable area in the country. Cotton and cotton products contributeabout 10 per cent to GDP and 55 per cent to the foreign exchangeearnings of the country. Taken as a whole, between 30 and 40 per cent of the cotton ends up as domestic consumption of final products. Theremaining is exported as raw cotton, yarn, cloth, and garments.Cotton production supports Pakistans largest industrial sector, comprisingsome 400 textile mills, 7 million spindles, 27,000 looms in the mill sector(including 15,000 shuttle less looms), over 250,000 looms in the nonmillsector, 700 knitwear units, 4,000 garment units (with 200,000 sewingmachines), 650 dyeing and finishing units (with finishing capacity of 1,150million square meters per year), nearly 1,000 ginneries, 300 oil expellers,and 15,000 to 20,000 indigenous, small scale oil expellers (kohl us). It isby any measure Pakistans most important economic sector. Notsurprisingly, government policy has generally been used to maintain astable and often relatively low domestic price of cotton, especially since PAKISTAN ECONOMY M.Rahim Ejaz HASNAIN IRFAN COTTON AND GINNERS growing regions in Punjab - Bahawalpur, Multan, Muzaffer Garh and KarorPakka; observed and evaluated independently its resistance andsusceptibility to different pests including factors like a biotic stress andyield than compared it with non Bt cotton varieties grown in the samelocations. A large number of farmers have visited these fields, andbecome aware of the benefits of the locally developed BT cotton. Today, all major cotton producing countries are benefiting from thecultivation of Bt Cotton. In the last season 54 percent of cotton cropsgrown in USA, 76 percent in China and 80 percent in Australia were withsingle or double BT gene technology. India, the worlds third-largestcotton-grower has cultivated 1.36 million acres of BT cotton crops. It isexpected that within two years more than half the worlds cotton may begrown from genetically modified crops.Crop reviews carried out by various independent sources illustrate thatunrecorded sowing of new Bt cotton varieties also played its role inincreasing cotton productivity, with unofficial estimates suggesting 3 to 5percent of the area in Punjab and 10 to 15 percent of the area in Sind mayhave been planted in transgenic cotton

ARTICLE CottonProduction in Pakistan Almightly Allah blessedPakistan with extraordinary cotton crop in 2011-12. Despite of floods andsevere rains in Punjab and Sindh, the production remained as high as 13.3 millionbales (170kg each), 5% more than the last assessment of 12.59 million bales byCotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC). The high production is mainlyattributed to extraordinary high cotton prices during 2010-11, that became asource of inspiration for high input usage, and better management of the crop.Nature favored with low Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) disease and mealy bugincidence. Although floods took a toll of about 2-2.5 million bales but thecountry managed to sustain a reasonably good cotton production. Deterioratedquality due to non-stop rains during boll opening stage of the cotton and highproduction affected the market badly. Farmers expecting last years high priceshave to face entirely different situation. The last years productionremained a source for projecting next years crop volume and some exaggeratedfigures are being quoted by different economic analytical forums without evaluatingthe picture holistically. A report published in April 2012, by GlobalAgriculture Information Network (GAIN), under Foreign Agriculture Services andUnited Agriculture Department of Agriculture projected Pakistans cottonproduction for the year 2012-13 as 10% increase in area and production. Theauthor forecasted the Pakistans cotton cultivation on 3.3 million ha andproduction as 11million bales (480 lbs per bale) equivalent to 14.1 millionbales (170 kg). The report also stated that GOP has approved 11 biotech and 3non-biotech cotton varieties for general cultivation in the country. The reportapparently is not based on any authentic source or data. Such premature projectionsmay damage the cotton market, shake investors confidence create bias estimatesof global cotton stocks. Ministry of Textile Industry can not endorse suchreports. Looking at the groundrealities, the Government of Punjab has approved 8 and not 11 new biotech and 6(not 3) non biotech varieties. The biotech varieties approved are with Mon 531gene for commercial cultivation in the province subjected to thecommercialization authentication from the National Bio-safety Committee. Theauthentication is still awaited. Early sowing in Punjab,being the main cotton belt, has achieved 21% less than last year, whereas, inSindh sowing is 2% lagging behind the area sown in the same period in 2011-12.The Indus River System Authority has already declared the water shortage by 21%till the end of June 2012. The availability of certified seed of approvedcotton varieties is not as much as last year. The prevalence of CLCV is uncertain and if weather becomes favorable toCLCV, the disease can outbreak and cause damage. Fertilizer availability willremain satisfactory; however pesticides availability could become an

issue as APTACmeeting has not been convened for more than 2 years due to shifting the subjectin different ministries after the devolution of ministry of Food Agriculture. Afterevaluating all factors, and not being pessimistic, achieving the last yearstarget seems a difficult task. After the defunct FederalCommittee on Agriculture (FCA) of the devolved Ministry of Food andAgriculture, the targets of any crop commodity are not officially fixed, ratherprovinces use their last years achievements as target of the next year.However, for cotton, Ministry of Textile Industry planning to constitute acommittee to fix targets by consulting all provinces and relevant stakeholdersand continue the crop volume estimation during the season so that an unbiased, authenticdata, based on relevant facts and realities could be publically available.