Pakistan’s cotton crisis comes home in imported bales

Pakistan’s new cotton season has begun with ships, contracts and foreign suppliers.

Before local ginning could gather force, textile mills had already moved to secure large quantities of cotton from the United States and Brazil. The reported purchase of more than 200,000 bales from the US crop, nearly the full weekly quantity sold, is a severe market signal. A country whose largest export industry was built around domestic cotton is now entering the season with mills looking overseas before the local crop can even prove itself.

The immediate reason is scarcity. Cotton prices have climbed to around Rs23,000 per maund. Phutti has touched Rs12,500 per 40kg. Cottonseed and oil cake have also reached historic highs. These prices would once have suggested a strong year for growers. In the present market, they show how little cotton is available, how anxious mills have become, and how thin the domestic supply chain now looks.

The import order has arrived after years of warnings. Cotton acreage has fallen. Output has dropped from its peak. Farmers have moved to sugarcane, rice and other crops. Ginners have lost volume. Spinners have faced higher raw material costs. Exporters have carried the weight of expensive energy, high taxes and an unreliable supply base. The field and the factory have both weakened, and each has made the other weaker.

Cotton was once the crop that joined Pakistan’s rural economy with its industrial economy. It gave farmers cash, ginners business, spinners fibre, exporters orders and the state foreign exchange. Its decline has damaged all five. The country still speaks of export-led growth, but one of the crops that made that ambition credible has been allowed to shrink in plain sight.

The crisis is visible in the ports. It is also visible in Rahim Yar Khan and Sanghar, two districts that once stood naturally inside any serious conversation about cotton. One shows what happens when sugarcane advances through cotton country. The other shows what happens when a crop faces drought, floods, weak seed and little protection. Together, they tell a story of retreat that can no longer be treated as seasonal fluctuation.