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3 RESEARCH ON COTTON IN
PAKISTAN
3.1 History of upland cotton
began in 1884 when American cotton was introduced for the first time in Punjab.
Roberts (1915) has the following to say:
| “the first attempt to grow
American cotton was made in 1884 when some upland Georgian seed was
distributed by the office of the Director of Land Records.
Apparently the crop grew quite well, and became common in the form
of stray (Norma) in the fields of Desi cotton, for many years
afterwards.” |
3.2 Based on the report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, a mono-crop
institution
namely Indian Central Cotton Committee with its headquarters in Bombay was set
up in 1923.
Counter part of this institution i.e., Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC)
was set up in
Pakistan with headquarters in Karachi, at that time the capital of Pakistan.
3.3 PCCC supplemented the adaptive research being done in the provinces. As a
consequence
of this policy PCCC established two mono-crop, multi-disciplined Cotton Research
Institutes,
one in Multan and the other in Sakrand. In addition, a number of research
stations have been
established through out the cotton belt.
3.4 Provincial Governments on their part have also established cotton research
stations.
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has also played a big role in cotton
research. As a
matter of interest the first heat resistant cultivar NIAB-78 was developed by
PAEC. Fortunately
for Pakistan, NIAB-78 has changed the cotton and economic mosaic of the country.
3.5 As a matter of interest, the gross expenditure on entire agriculture in the
Punjab during
1906-07 was Rs. 50,000/-. The budge increased sharply during the succeeding
years, and during
1945-46 was Rs. 10,346,700/- (Afzal, 1. 1998).
3.6 Cotton research is heavily financed by PCCC and currently its research
budget is over
Rs. 100 million per year. List of cotton cultivars evolved over the years
presented in table 2.
3.7 If only one cultivar AC-134 is considered, economic contribution made and
revenue generated by it is many times more than the total expenditure on cotton research
till about 1970.
If, however, another cultivar namely NIAB-78 is also considered the economic
benefits are
probably 100 times the total expenditure on research. It is now crystal clear
that cotton research
had not only paid for itself but has been constantly priming the economic engine
of the country.
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