<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Bangladesh has set a target to increase five times the cotton production by 2030, introducing new varieties and expanding cultivation areas, since the country appeared as the second largest consumer of the industrial crop.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“Cotton could be a major cash crop as we need to spend US$3billion every year for its import to meet its expanding demand in the textile industry,” Cotton Development Board’s (CDB) additional director Dr Md Fakhre Alam Ibne Tabib told BSS.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The country currently produces less than 0.2 million cotton bales (1 bale equals roughly 480 pounds) a year against the annual demand for 8.5 million bales, according to official statistics.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Against the backdrop of high demands, Bangladeshi textile and spinning mills and other users import cotton from India, the United States, several African and Central Asian nations, Australia, Brazil and Pakistan.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Tabib said they set the target to enhance the domestic cotton production to 1 million bales using newly invented high yielding and hybrid varieties and using the vast low fertile barren lands in the country’s southeastern hill region alongside some plain districts.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Western Jhenaidah and Jashore are plain districts while parts of Bandarban and Rangamati are hill districts where the country currently witnesses cotton production.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The cotton board now runs 27 on-farm trials at 13 zones covering greater Jashore, greater Kushtia, Rajshahi, Bogura, Rangpur, Thakurgaon, Dhaka, Mymensigh and the three hill districts incorporating Khagrachari as part of their initiatives.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">CDB officials said the trial of germplasm of 12 high yielding Turkish cotton varieties were now underway at research farms under a project called Enhancing Capability in Cotton Varieties Development.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“We are expanding (cotton) cultivation coverage on low-fertile regions of – Barind land (greater Rajshahi), drought-and saline-prone areas, shoals and hilly areas, keeping in mind the initiative does not affect the main crops,” Tabib said.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">He said the CDB scientists last year developed a new cotton variety naming it “CDB Cotton 19” alongside inventing two cultivation methods under a series of research projects in five cotton research centres of the country.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“Our researches simultaneously improved the cotton qualities alongside the varieties,” Talib said.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Cotton is mainly sown in the July-August period and harvested in between December and January and currently its cultivation is spread over 45,000 hectares while the figure was 31,500 hectares in 2009-2010.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Over the past one decade the production volume nearly doubled since ity was less than 100,000 bales in 2009-2010.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">According to CDB officials, raw or seed cotton production was about 2,000 kg per hectare in 2009-10 which now stands at 4,000 kg per hectare with introduction of high yielding and hybrid varieties.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman established the Cotton Development Board (CPD) in 1972 to increase cotton production.</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The CPD is enstructed with the task of conducting research, producing, distributing and marketing seeds, expanding cotton cultivation and distributing loans among farmers. BSS</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>