Cotton revival strategy

GOVERNMENT’S decision to launch a comprehensive cotton revival strategy is a welcome and long-overdue step. However, the scale of the decline in the country’s cotton sector raises an uncomfortable question: how did a crop once known as Pakistan’s “white gold” reach such a state of collapse without anyone being held accountable? Cotton is not just another crop. It is the lifeblood of Pakistan’s textile industry, which remains the largest contributor to the country’s exports, employment and industrial activity. Yet over the last one and a half decades, successive governments allowed this strategic sector to deteriorate through neglect, weak planning and poor implementation of reforms. The numbers tell a disturbing story. In 2011-12, Pakistan cultivated cotton on 2.861 million hectares and produced 14.814 million bales. By 2025-26, the cultivated area shrank to 1.777 million hectares, while production crashed to just 5.301 million bales – a staggering decline of nearly 64 percent. Punjab, historically the backbone of cotton production, witnessed an even more alarming collapse, with output plunging from 12.132 million bales to only 2.540 million bales. What makes this decline even more tragic is that the world moved in the opposite direction. Countries such as China dramatically increased productivity through research, modern seed technology and farmer support. Pakistan should have been targeting a doubling or even tripling of cotton output to meet the needs of its growing textile sector. Instead, production fell to historic lows, forcing the country to spend billions of dollars importing cotton. In FY25 alone, Pakistan imported 8.6 million bales worth $2.63 billion. These are resources that could have been saved had domestic production been protected and enhanced. Had cotton production grown rather than declined, our textile exports would likely be far higher today. Greater availability of local cotton would have reduced production costs, strengthened competitive