Promoting Agricultural Value Chains:
In the OIC Member Countries
106
production for 2014/2015 season is estimated at 10.5 million bales, the yields have been at a
record high in 2014/15 at an average of 775kg per hectare (USDA, 2015).
Next to policy initiatives, cotton research has always received high priority in Pakistan,
primarily aiming at developing new pest and disease-resistant cotton varieties that have high
yield potential and desirable fibre characteristics. Priority is given to the disease of cotton
caused by the Leaf Curl Virus which is particularly pervasive in Pakistan. A variety of research
institutes are active in this field, including the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee, the Central
Cotton Research Institute, the Pakistan Institute of Cotton Research and Technology, the
Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, and a number of provincial Cotton Research Stations.
Yet despite achieving varietal improvement, Pakistan still has not been able to achieve its full
potential for cotton production and continues to struggle with a variety of pests and diseases.
The Government also offers extension services to farmers on Integrated Pest Management, but
this has not been very successful on a broad scale (Salam, 2008). Moreover, the focus of
extension services has been on production quantity, but not product quality, which contributes
to the quality problems in the cotton industry (Ghulam, 2014).
Research on genetically modified cotton was initiated in Pakistan in 1995, involving both
public and private sector institutes.5 Although field trials were concluded successfully in 2005,
Pakistan did not commercially adopt Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) cotton until 2010 due to delays
in the approval of Bt varieties. This delay resulted in the adoption of unapproved Bt cotton
varieties, which were developed based on a Bt variety that Monsanto had not patented in
Pakistan and were first grown in the country in 2002 (Nazli, 2010). In 2007, already 60
percent of the growing area was under transgenic cotton (Nazli, 2010) – a number which
rapidly increased to approximately 95 percent in 2014 (USDA, 2015). In 2010, Pakistan
formally approved ten Bt cotton varieties for commercial use, resulting in the first officially
commercial cotton crop cultivated in the 2010/11 season (USDA, 2013b). The Punjab Seed
Council approved further Bt varieties in 2012, but at the Federal level progress in the
commercialisation of Bt cotton has stalled since 2010, as three major laws have been pending
in the national parliament since 2009: the Seed Amendment, the Plant Breeder’s Right Bill and
the Biosafety Law, all of which are considered necessary to regulate the development of
transgenic varieties by establishing infrastructure for maintaining standards and quality
control (USDA, 2012b). The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service views the introduction of new
biotech varieties as unlikely until the regulatory environment is more certain (USDA, 2015).
5.6.2 Standards
The lack of (adherence to) quality standards is one of the central challenges of the Pakistan
cotton sector: severe quality issues arise due to contamination and watering (Ghulam, 2014;
USDA, 2015). Contamination takes place in different stages of the cotton value chain, including
on the field, post-harvest management, storage and transport (Ghulam, 2014; USDA, 2015).
Factors contributing to contamination include remnants from fabrics and polypropylene bags
which the pickers use, leaf trash, cotton sticks, grasses or human hair (Ghulam 2014; USDA,
2015). This not only increases the costs of production, but even after cleaning, the
contamination is entrenched in the yarn and affects the quality and value of the cotton (State
Bank of Pakistan, 2005).
5 Institutes include the National Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (University of Punjab), Agricultural Biotechnology
Research Institute Faisalabad, Centre of Agricultural Biotechnology and Biochemistry (CABB), National Institute for
Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), and Nuclear Institute of Agriculture and Biology (NIAB)