This year, the Punjab government claims farmers are likely have a bumper cotton harvest, with cotton acreage doubling in the Malwa region to about 3.9 lakh acres — against last year’s 2.4 lakh acres — and the government’s awareness and action-against-whitefly campaigns in place
Punjab: Baldev Sharma, 39, from Bathinda’s Talwandi Sabo is a third generation cotton farmer. This year he sowed cotton on 12 acres of land compared to last year when the whitefly epidemic, which ravaged cotton crop worth nearly 4,200 crores in Punjab, forced his family to sow only three acres of cotton in the same area.
This year, the Punjab government claims farmers like Mr Sharma are likely have a bumper cotton harvest, with cotton acreage doubling in the Malwa region to about 3.9 lakh acres — against last year’s 2.4 lakh acres — and the government’s awareness and action-against-whitefly campaigns in place.
"We have prepared a strategy to prevent the attack of the whitefly in which we have 500 scouts and 50 supervisors to spread awareness among farmers. We don’t think farm suicides are happening directly because of damaged crops, there are other factors, too, but yes input costs are increasing and our Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) are not increasing," said JS Bains, Director Agriculture, Punjab.
For 12 years, the majority of Punjab’s farmers have been growing Bt cotton, or genetically modified cotton seeds, which have protected their crops from pests like bollworms. Their yields have doubled too. However, in the last few years, Bt cotton has displayed a remarkable vulnerability to a large number of sap feeding pests like white-flies, which have a high tolerance of Bt toxins, and which require increased pesticides, raising both the farmers’ production costs and soil toxicity.
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