Factors Influencing Sustainable Production of Cotton in Pakistan: A Case Study From Bahawalpur District

Abstract

Pakistan is one of the most important cotton producing and consuming country in the World. But there is instability in cotton production in Pakistan. The present study purpose is to explore the important factors affecting cotton production in Pakistan. A sample of 50 small farmers, 30 medium and 20 large farmers was randomly selected from different villages of Punjab province. Some production function was employed to assess the effects of education, land fertilization, weather, land preparation, seed, irrigation, etc on the productivity of cotton. The results revealed that the coefficients for cultivation (0.115) and seed (0.105) were found statistically significant at 1 percent level. The Cost-Benefit Ratio for the large farmers was found higher (1.35) than that of small (1.28) and medium (1.33) farmers. So, there is a huge need to educate the farmers on priority basis to adopt the recommended practices and to ensure the availability of these inputs. The extension staff can play a highly positive role in this regard. At the end, a detailed discussion is proposed to show the efficiency of the proposed model.