Punjab additional chief secretary (development) Viswajeet Khanna said on Saturday that the state agricultural department had chalked out a comprehensive strategy to switch the area from paddy to maize and cotton cultivation as part of its crop diversification programme.

He added that in the kharif season, the state’s area under cotton was expected to increase by 30% to 12.5 lakh acre from 9.7 lakh acre last year. In 2018, the area under the crop was 6.62 lakh acre, which was increased to 9.7 lakh acre in 2019. If this year’s target is achieved, the area under cotton would almost double in two years.

Khanna added 21.5 lakh packets of BT cotton seed had been arranged and that the department has also coordinated with the Cotton Corporation of India(CCI) to buy last season’s remaining cotton produce from farmers at the assured MSP. He added that for this, 19 markets in the cotton belt had been made operational.

Source: Hindustan Times