Cotton crop to be cultivated over 2,955 thousand hectares of land across the crop growing areas in the country during current sowing season to fulfill the domestic requirements of the commodity as well as for exporting.

The cotton production targets for the crop season 2018-19 were fixed at 14.370 million bales with an average per hectare output of 850 kg per hectare, said an official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

He said that cotton crop to be cultivated over 2,300 thousand hectares in Punjab Province, where as crop production during the period under review was fixed at 10.0 million bales.

The average crop output was fixed at 739.5 kg per hectare by ensuring the availability of certified high yielding seed verities and efficient use of other inputs, he added.

Meanwhile, he said that the crop sowing targets for the Sindh Province was fixed at 620 thousand hectares to produce about 4.200 million cotton bales during current Kharif season by achieving an average output of about 1,152.3 kg per hectare.

On the other hand, cotton crop to be cultivated over 5 thousand hectares in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 30 thousand hectares in Balochistan provinces respectively to produce 20,000 and 150,000 cotton bales respectively.

He further informed that in order to achieve the sowing targets government had ensured the availability of all inputs including certified high yielding seed, pesticides and access to credit facilities to purchase these inputs on time.

The federal government in collaboration with the field extension departments had started awareness campaign for cotton growers and initiated different training program at field level to cultivate the crop in more areas and to achieve more output, he added.

He said that the government had also introduced short messaging services for farmers for providing them  proper weather forecast and climatic conditions during the season and updating them about any pest out attacks to avoid any damage to crop.