Cotton acreage in Punjab and Haryana has remained far less than the targeted area. The reason: farmers feared whitefly which destroyed much of the crop last year in both states. So they are looking at alternate crops like paddy, pulses, guar. Punjab has so far seen cotton sowing at 2.08 lakh hectares, less than half of the target of five lakh hectares. Haryana is a little better off with 65 per cent sowing so far against the target of 6.20 lakh hectares.

Another reason farmers could not achieve the sowing target is non-availability of canal water. In several areas of Punjab, about 80,000 hectares of area could not brought under cotton because of non-availability of irrigation water.

Last season, whitefly pest attack had caused widespread damage to Bt cotton varieties in Punjab and Haryana, which witnessed a dip of about 40 per cent in output. In Punjab, 1.36 lakh hectares out of a total of 4.50 lakh hectares of cotton acreage were damaged by whitefly attack while in Haryana out of 5.83 lakh hectares, 3.06 lakh hectares were in the grip of pest attacks.

Both Punjab and Haryana encouraged farmers this year to grow indigenous cotton as the domestic variety has resistance to whitefly attack.