Cotton is a vital crop for Pakistan's economy, accounting for a significant portion of agricultural value and GDP. However, Pakistan faces low cotton yields due to issues like pest infestations, lack of irrigation, and poor seed varieties. The development of biotech cotton varieties that are resistant to major cotton pests could help increase yields and boost the economy. Pakistan has begun cultivating biotech cotton varieties developed by PAEC that have shown encouraging results, with no major pest damage or stress observed. Other cotton producing countries have widely adopted biotech cotton and seen economic benefits. Future collaboration with China, such as a joint cotton biotech lab under CPEC, may help Pakistan further develop and utilize biotech cotton technologies.

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COTTON BIOTECH
Cotton:
Cotton is an important cash crop for Pakistan known as “white gold”. It accounts
for 8.2 percent of the value added in agriculture and about 3.2 percent to GDP;
around two thirds of the country’s export earnings are from the cotton made-up
and textiles which adds over $2.5 billion to the national economy; while hundreds
of ginning factories and textile mills in the country heavily depends upon cotton.
Life of millions of farmers is dependent on this crop, in addition to millions of
people employed along the entire cotton value chain, from weaving to textile and
garment exports.
The area under the cultivation of cotton crops has been increased significantly in
the last 30 years - around 7.85 million acres in 2005-06 as compared to 7.2 million
acres in 2002-03. Besides being the world’s fourth-largest cotton producer and
the third largest exporter of raw cotton and a leading exporter of yarn in the
world our yield per acres ranks 13th in the world; as a result Pakistan annually
imports around 1.5-2.00 million bales of cotton to meet growing demand from
local textile mills; therefore it has become vital for Pakistan to increase its yield
per acre.
Low Yields of Cotton in Pakistan:
There are many reasons for low yields of cotton crop in Pakistan, high price of
agriculture inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides etc.), higher intensity of insects
and pests attack, shortage of good quality and varieties of seeds, deficiency of
water for irrigation, lack of advance technologies, awareness and
agroprofessionalism, and adulterations in pesticides, fertilizers and seeds. It is
unfortunate that there is no proper cotton crop insurance system available in
Pakistan, while government does not provide any support or subsidy to cotton
growers for inputs resulted in frustration and lack of motivation in cotton
growers.

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Farmers are facing with a number of risks till marketing of their crops including
unexpected factors like inflation, high price of energy, unfair competition and
speculation in open market by big cotton buyers. Although, government claims
that they have excellent micro-economy policy to improve the livelihood of
farmers and elimination of poverty in rural area through bank-loans offered to the
farmers, however, the interest rates are fairly high.
Agriculture Biotech and Cotton:
Agriculture biotechnology is helping today to provide people with more and
better crops, food and holds even greater promise for the future. Green
revolution farming methods are coming to an end with declining yields due to
environmental and soil degradation, loss of seedling varieties and high input
costs. Many Asian countries including China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and Vietnam are giving high priority to plant
biotechnology research in the hope of addressing the pressing challenges related
to improving productivity, farmers livelihoods, driving rural development, and
meeting food security demands.
If we look at the Pakistan scenario, two major types of pests are damaging our
cotton crops, sucking and chewing. To certain extent it is easier to control sucking
pest by strong pesticides but is very challenging to control chewing pests,
Bollworms known as “Sundies”, American, Army, Pink and Spotted, cause major
devastations in the cotton crop fields. As a result of this, overall both quality of
lint and production of cotton have declined substantially.
Cotton Biotech and Pakistan:
In May 2005 PAEC provided 40,000.00 Kg basic seed of Biotech cotton (insect
resistant) varieties “IR-FH-901”, “IR-NIBGE-2”, “IR-CIM-448” and “IR-CIM-443”;
which have been grown over 8,000 acres of land in season 2005-06. Encouraging
outcomes have surprised everyone from seed companies to the farmers who

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cultivated these varieties. These early users of Biotech cotton have been tightly
screened and evaluated by PAEC on the bases of their capacity to follow Bio-
safety rules.
Farmers, who cultivated these Biotech cotton varieties at heart of cotton growing
regions in Punjab i.e. Bahawalpur, Multan, Muzaffer Garh and Karor Pakka,
observed and evaluated independently its resistance and susceptibility to
different pests including factors like abiotic stress and yield than compared it with
non-biotech cotton varieties grown in the same locations. A large number of
farmers have visited these fields, and become aware of the benefits of the locally
developed Biotech cotton.
No serious incidence of cotton leaf curl virus disease was reported in Biotech
cotton varieties. Heat stress in cotton crop was also recorded in different region,
however no stress was observed in Biotech cotton varieties.
Biotech Cotton & Other Countries:
Today, all major cotton producing countries are benefiting from the cultivation of
Biotech Cotton. In the last season 54 percent of cotton crops grown in USA, 76
percent in China and 80 percent in Australia were with “single” or “double”
Biotech gene technology. India, the world’s third-largest cotton-grower has
cultivated 1.36 million acres of Biotech cotton crops. It is expected that within
two years more than half the world’s cotton may be grown from genetically
modified crops.
Biotech Cotton and CPEC:
The recent visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Pakistan brought forth the
hopes of such stability for Pakistan in the forthcoming years. The China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor is located where the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st
Century Maritime Silk Road meet. It is, therefore, a major project of the "Belt and

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Road" initiative. In CPEC, China has planned an establishment of China-Pakistan
Joint Cotton Biotech Laboratory. Some analysts have stated that openly
supporting the Silk Route as proposed by China would jeopardise India’s
sovereign status in some of the territories that China claims to be its own,
especially in the Aksai Chin region and in Arunachal Pradesh. India should
strengthen and work whole heartedly in parallel projects that it has launched like
that of the “Cotton Route” project along the North South Corridor.
Pakistan has significant research efforts in seed and livestock development at
various agriculture universities, institutes and departments. Pakistani researchers
and scientists are currently collaborating in life sciences with their counterparts in
the US and China. A number of crops like cotton, rice, wheat, corn, potato, ground
nut are being developed locally or with the collaboration of Chinese and US seed
companies.
Conclusion:
Molecular biology has advanced to such an extent that if scientists of any country
are not adequately imaginative they would most certainly be left behind only to
put their countries to an economic disadvantage in an open market economy.
Cotton crop is a bundle of challenges to the researcher. It has been subjected to
stringent research programmes well over the past century. Peculiarly the
problems are far from over. At times it seems that the conventional ways of
research are perhaps saturated not being able to offer anything drastically
different and novel in order to cause a perceptible change in the cotton crop
production, protection and improvement programmes. Several conventional
projects look ordinary repetitive and jaded. Biotechnological advances are
exciting not just because the intricacies of the science are just being unravelled
but also becausethe tools are extraordinarily powerfuland can generate products
that have a tremendous commercial application in the near and distant future.