Cotton farming to spread to Pakistan villages

LAHORE, Mar 12 (Commodity Online): In a bid to tap the highly priced domestic and international cotton market, farmers in Lahore, Gujranwala, Sargodha and Rawalpindi of Pakistan's Punjab province will be motivated to produce modern varieties of cotton. The move would ensure 30 per cent more of modern varieties of cotton spreading to non-traditional areas where cotton crop is found to be suitable and sustainable given the conditions prevailing. The government thus has decided to extend the dividends to farmers in these area as well with the Punjab Agriculture Extension Department entrusted with the task, reported www.thenews.com.pk. The Pakistan economy is still agrarian in nature and the government's new measure seeks to improve the output of cotton that would pay the farmers better price dividend. Currently 0.8 million acres of land fall under cotton cultivation in six divisions of the Punjab province which are situated mainly in Faisalabad and Sahiwal. Cotton economy in Pakistan employs most of the country's labour force and claims a big pie of exports.