As revealed in the Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security, Pakistan has missed its cotton sowing target by over 8 per cent due to extraordinary shortage of water and is unlikely to achieve production target of 14.37 million bales set for the year 2018. Sindh province produced around 32 mounds seed cotton per acre compared to 21 mounds in Punjab, but due to water shortage, Sindh missed the sowing target by around 31-35 percent.

The target for cotton seed sowing for 2018-19 in Punjab was 2.31 million hectares and the sowing was done on area of 2.29 million hectares while in Sindh the sowing was done on 0.42 million hectares against the target of 0.62 million hectares. The overall sowing area in Pakistan was told to be 2.71 million hectares against the target of 2.95 million hectares. The targets in Punjab saw a positive percentage increase of 11.5 percent and in Sindh there were a negative percentage of 31.

Extraordinary shortage of water during the current Kharif season has badly affected the cotton sowing in early season. However, in Punjab, 99 per cent of the sowing target was achieved, whereas in Sindh, only 68 per cent of the target area could be sown.