LAHORE: Cotton stakeholders have questioned the credibility of the Federal Committee on Agriculture’s (FCA) production estimates for the 2026-27 cotton season after the committee projected Sindh’s per-acre cotton yield to be 63 percent higher than Balochistan’s and 41pc higher than Punjab’s, despite Balochistan historically recording the country’s highest yields.
Expressing surprise over the figures, Cotton Ginners Forum chairman Ehsanul Haq said the FCA, an attached body of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, had once again issued, what he termed unrealistic projections for national cotton production and provincial yields.
According to the FCA’s estimates for crop year 2026-27, Pakistan is expected to produce 9.643 million bales of cotton. The committee has projected Punjab to cultivate cotton on 3.2m acres, producing five million bales with an average yield of 1.60 bales per acre.
For Sindh, the FCA has estimated cotton cultivation over 1.486m acres, producing 4.042m bales with an average yield of 2.72 bales per acre. Balochistan, meanwhile, has been projected to cultivate cotton on 604,250 acres with an average yield of only one bale per acre.
Stakeholders argue that ‘unrealistic figures’ for FY27 may hit country’s credibility in world markets
