ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary committee has put the prime responsibility of the declining trend of cotton cultivation in the country on the poor quality cotton seed in the market.

Members of the Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security formed the opinion after listening to experts and scientists from government agriculture research centres on Wednesday.

“Poor quality seed had rendered cotton crop intolerant to impacts and challenges of climate change,” the cotton commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, Khalid Abdullah, reported to the committee, which is considering a bill to regulate seed production in the country.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Syed Muzafar Hussain Shah of PML-F, noted that local, and particularly multinational cotton seed producers, were not investing to develop quality seed in Pakistan.

“This is primarily due to absence of laws in the country that protect [producers’] intellectual property rights,” he said.

However, he disclosed that the Plant Breeders Rights Act 2015 passed by the National Assembly this year to that effect, would become law within two months.

“We believe that this new law will enable multinational companies such as Monsanto to take out patents for the seeds they develop, and hence make large investments in the agriculture sector. Pakistani cotton growers will then have quality seed available in the market,” added Senator Muzafar Hussain Shah.

In its report, ‘Declining Trend of Cotton Cultivation’, presented to the committee, the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) said that “climatic atrocities” have significantly affected cotton production since 2010. Torrential rains, leading to heavy floods, caused substantial losses to crops, livestock and infrastructure.

It said the 2010 torrential rains, and subsequent floods, led to the loss of 2.3 million bales of cotton crop, valued around Rs100 billion.

For the next five years the cotton crop suffered badly from heavy rains or floods. “Moreover, climate change indirectly affected the cotton crop by providing conditions for resurgence of cotton insect pests. Attacks by Armyworm, Pink bollworm, Whitefly and the cotton leaf curl virus (CLCuV) have continuously posed threat to cotton productivity,” said the report.

PARC maintains that damages to cotton production due to altering environment and lower market prices have compelled cotton growers to shift over to other competing crops such as rice, maize, sugarcane and potatoes etc, in the core cotton areas of the Punjab province.