HOW PAKISTAN LOST ITS COTTON

When you drive through South Punjab, you will notice irregular plots with diverse land uses and different crops growing on them. The yields on those crops, you will discover if so inclined, can also vary. This heterogenous landscape with many different crops reflects diverse management choices, capabilities, needs and resources. Many of these plots are managed by smallholder farmers who operate land as small as half a hectare. On a sunny October afternoon in 2020, I walked with Nusrat*, her elderly mother and younger sister through their small plot of land where they grow cotton. She spoke about her attachment to this land. 'My family has belonged to this area since the time of Hazrat Adam [Prophet Adam],' Nusrat claims, 'we belong to this land.' I certainly did not question the validity of her statement. However, maintaining a dignified life and livelihood on the land to which they are so attached increasingly came with a great deal of hardships. After generations of patrimonial division of the land, her family barely had enough land to cultivate crops on. They lived off a rented agricultural plot of roughly four acres, where they grew cotton in the summer and wheat in winter. Cotton had become unproductive over recent years and the crops were evidently in a poor condition, with a great deal of shed leaves and unopened spotted bolls, indicating disease and damage. The miracle seed that once transformed Pakistan's cotton fields ultimately proved unable to withstand evolving pests, climate extremes and failing institutions, resulting in the unravelling of an entire agricultural system. Based on years of fieldwork, this is the story of how South Punjab's cotton belt entered a crisis and why the poorest farmers remain trapped within it With a yield of only 1.5 maund per acre (one maund is equal to 40 kilogrammes) and little hope for more, Nusrat conveyed a sense of apprehension: 'When my father comes in the evening and visits the farm, he is unable to eat afterwards.' They managed to survive by working as weed pickers, but that did not pay well. When asked why they did not grow something else, she said, 'Only the poor are forced to grow cotton. Big landowners are not. They grow rice, potato and maize. They grow fodder. They have the machinery to mix residues in the land. That increases the average of the next crop.' She was not an outlier. In many parts of South Punjab, referring to the belt of 11 districts that grows close to two-thirds of Pakistan's cotton, farmers have increasingly referred to the crop in the language of a funeral, as 'vanishing' and 'disappearing'. The official record agrees: the land planted with cotton in many parts of the so-called 'cotton belt' has shrunk steadily for over a decade. This is the story of how that happened. It involves hopes centred around a seed technology that delivered on its promises of yield protection for a few good years before succumbing to complex social-ecological challenges, and ultimately failing to preserve a long-standing cotton industry in the region. It is also the story of who gets to leave a failing agricultural system and who is left holding it in place. A CROP OLDER THAN THE COUNTRY Cotton is not new to this region. Traces of the significance of agriculture in Punjab can be found as far back as the sixth millennium BCE, when the earliest known specimens of cotton fibres were found from the Indus Valley civilisation. The cotton industry is also well-established in the region. Cotton was promoted in Punjab during British colonial rule through the establishment of an Agriculture College in Lyallpur (today's Faisalabad) in 1902. By 1914, American commercial varieties of cotton were introduced, due to their higher yields and better lint quality, changing the cotton landscape in perpetuity. The cultivation of cotton spread rapidly during the 19th and 20th century as the canal system was established, with the area under cotton acreage increasing since the creation of Pakistan in the mid-20th century. Agricultural production in South Punjab is subject to great ecological challenges. Summers are scorching, rain is scarce and falls mostly in the monsoon months, and agriculture survives on irrigation. Roughly 35 million people live in South Punjab, three-quarters of them in the countryside, most tied in some way to the land. Cotton is the great summer cash crop, planted after the winter wheat comes off the fields. However, this conventional cropping pattern is changing. Since the turn of the millennium, cotton farmers had been battling numerous pests. Bollworms such as American bollworm, pink bollworm and spotted bollworm had been destroying yields. Pesticides, which had expanded since the 1980s, were proving to be ineffective against pests that would not go away. Then, in the early 2000s, a new and promising seed technology appeared. A cotton boll destroyed by the pink bollworm in Multan district: in 2022, the pink bollworm returned as a major threat, with parts of Multan flagged as infestation hotspots | Photo courtesy the writer THE (UNOFFICIAL) UPTAKE OF BT COTTON SEEDS 'Bt cotton' seeds were engineered to produce the toxin Bacillus thuringiensis that naturally kills bollworm pests. These seeds had been commercialised by Monsanto in 1995 (Monsanto was acquired by Bayer in 2018). The seed technology spread quickly around the cotton-growing world and, in several countries, including China, India and Argentina, it spread 'illegally' before it spread legally. Pakistan was no exception, but its version of the story was slightly different. In India and Argentina, the big transnational seed corporations were central players. In Pakistan, they were formally absent. Instead, the technology arrived through private companies and breeders. A member at a cotton research institute in South Punjab described the first generation of Bt cotton, known as Bollgard I, as having been 'stolen' and arriving in the country 'illegally'. Whether it was in fact illegal is contested: from Monsanto's point of view, no agreement was ever signed, while Pakistan's own regulators judged varieties approved or unapproved under their own rules. The earliest approval from the state came in 2010. However, local seed companies in Pakistan were reportedly experimenting with exotic Bt seed as early as 1997. By 2003, there had been field trials and unapproved varieties were leaked to farmers through informal channels. Private breeders and companies crossed Bollgard I — the first generation of Bt cotton technology — with local varieties and sold the results without state approval. One of the pioneers was the company Neelum Seeds, which produced a variety called Neelum (Bt)121. A farmer in Multan district recounted, 'For several years, Neelum 121 did business. There was no attack of spotted or American bollworm. As soon as the worms would lay eggs and the eggs would hatch and the hatchlings search for food, they would die immediately upon touching the [cotton] leaves. This gave a lot of relief to farmers.' Farmers embraced Bt cotton seeds as these promised bigger harvests, because fewer bolls would be lost to pests. The promise did not come only from seeds salesmen. Even state officials, farmers said, urged them on. 'They said that if you currently have 25 maund, Bt will give you 50 maund [per acre],' one smallholder in Lodhran recalled. BT COTTON BOOM For a while, it worked. Farmers who planted the new seed remembered being delighted. One in Khanewal district recalled early yields of 50 maund an acre. Several interviewed farmers recalled similar figures in those first years. Additionally, and just as strikingly, they recalled using far less pesticides. 'A single application of pesticides would suffice,' one farmer in Multan district remembered. Another cotton farmer recounted, 'We used to use pyrethroids to control these bollworms earlier but once Bt arrived we stopped using this.' Pyrethroids are highly potent insecticides that not only eradicate pests but also farmer-friendly insects that support the immunity of plants. Word spread and the seed market boomed. By one estimate, unapproved Bt varieties covered 60 percent of Pakistan's cotton land in 2007 and 80 percent by 2009. One breeder boasted that a single one of his unapproved varieties covered nearly a fifth of Punjab's cotton area in 2012. He described his popularity during the peak years, from 2010 to 2014, in these words: 'I had to switch off my phone during the seed season.' Underneath the boom lay a deep faith, older than Bt technology itself, in the power of a good seed. It can be traced back to the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when new wheat and rice varieties had produced astonishing harvests and taught a generation of farmers to look towards good seeds for salvation. 'When the Mexican strain of wheat arrived, people travelled long distances to buy it,' an elderly farmer in Khanewal said as he remembered the high yields resulting from these exotic seeds. That same faith would later keep farmers loyal to Bt cotton long after it stopped repaying them, convinced that their problem was not the technology itself but a lack of access to good quality seed. This graph, based on data sourced from the Punjab Agriculture Department's Crop Reporting Service, shows the decline over the years in the area in South Punjab where cotton is sown | Courtesy the writer A CRISIS EMERGES The turn came around 2014 and 2015. The seed dealer who had switched off his phone in the boom years described the moment it began to unravel: heavy, unseasonal rain in 2015 that he blamed on climate change; the provincial cotton average sliding from 23 maund an acre to 14; and, in the same year, the return of the pink bollworm. Farmers again had to turn towards pesticides. Bollgard I, the first generation of Bt seed technology, had lost its resistance to bollworm pests. Other sucking pests had also become a problem for farmers, particularly the whitefly. In South Punjab, average cotton yields fell from 22 maund an acre in 2007 to just nine maund by the 2022 season. Several forces had converged to cause this descent. For one, the weather had turned hostile. For instance, in 2020, rainfall in Punjab ran 48 percent above average and, in an arid region built for dryness, sudden downpours flattened standing crops. Rising summer heat made cotton plants shed their bolls before they opened. A brief reprieve arrived in 2021 when a dry, calm year lifted the regional average yield back to approximately 20 maund an acre. Unfortunately, this was followed in 2022 by fresh disaster: poor germination, more pests, untimely rain and the catastrophic national floods of that summer, whose lingering moisture proved ruinous for cotton. The smallholders hit hardest were those locked by the wheat-cotton calendar into planting according to the conventional calendar. More affluent farmers who followed alternative cropping cycles were able to plant cotton earlier, and therefore managed to have a round of picking harvests before disaster struck. Pest pressure had also escalated. The pink bollworm returned as a major threat, with parts of Multan flagged as infestation hotspots by 2022. Moreover, the Bt gene had never protected against other enemies, such as whitefly, thrips, mealy bug, the cotton leaf curl virus, and these pests also intensified. Meanwhile, the pesticides meant to safeguard were failing. Some experts blamed years of spraying the same chemicals, which had bred immune pests; others pointed to cheap, poorly formulated or outright adulterated products. 'The crop was good until the second picking, when the bollworms appeared,' one farmer said. 'Pesticides would be too big of an expense, so I decided to cut my losses and sell the infested crop to livestock herders.' For the most part, no upgraded technology was widely available. Monsanto had released newer generations of Bt cotton — Bollgard II in 2002, Bollgard III in 2016 — but, at the time, no deal was ever struck to bring them to Pakistan's fields at scale. At a local level, by 2022, the Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB) at the University of Punjab developed double and triple gene varieties of Bt cotton that claimed to offer some defence against rampant bollworm pests. However, such varieties had limited commercial release and so, for the most part, farmers continued to plant an ageing technology against evolving pests. FARMERS LEFT TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES Meanwhile, as yields were in decline, costs were increasing. The seed itself had been the smaller problem. The Bt seed cost around 70 percent more than the conventional seed when it arrived, but many farmers simply saved and replanted their own. However, battling the pest complex grew expensive. Over time, as the efficacy of Bt cotton seeds declined, the crop demanded more and more pesticides to battle the evolving pest pressure. Previously, one farmer said, he treated his field once a month — now, 'every six to seven days, you have to repeat the application.' The only pesticides that still worked were the pricey imports, which are predominantly beyond the reach of most farmers. Behind the decline of cotton was a perceived broader abandonment. 'There is no one standing behind cotton,' a member of the cotton research institute remarked, indicating that cotton lacked political backing. Farmers and experts alike described a state that had backed away, leaving cotton growers to face the crisis alone. A senior agriculture department official made no apology for it: 'Market forces are working in favour of the farmer. We are not a communist country. We are a free economy.' Workers pick cotton in a field in Bahawalpur district: historically, cotton has been Pakistan's great summer cash crop, planted after the winter wheat comes off the fields | AFP Meanwhile, other crops have been advancing in the region. Sugarcane's acreage in South Punjab jumped by 22.6 percent between the cropping seasons of 2019 and 2020. It had expanded by another 12 percent by 2021. Several people interviewed put this down to politics. Many powerful politicians, they noted, are also landowners with stakes in the sugar industry. 'Most people in the government have vested interests in the sugar industry,' one non-governmental organisation (NGO) worker said bluntly. Resourceful farmers found another exit. Maize, especially hybrid varieties, which can be grown twice a year, sell readily and come from reliable seed. Maize acreage in Pakistan rose 16.6 percent in a single season between 2020 and 2021. But switching crops takes capital, machinery, know-how and labour — and the smallholders had none to spare. By 2022, some farmers could not even sell what they grew, as the region's cotton-processing factories began shutting their doors. A smallholder farmer saves Bt cotton seeds for reuse in 2021 in Bahawalpur district: in 2022, poor germination, more pests, untimely rain and the catastrophic national floods of that summer proved ruinous for cotton | Photo courtesy the writer STUCK WITH COTTON For the poorest cotton farmers, change was hard. Many bought their inputs on credit from local dealers who doubled as their cotton buyers, repaying the debt in produce, a cycle that kept them permanently short. Where a big farmer can store harvest and wait for prices to rise, a smallholder generally has to sell cheap the moment the crop comes in, just to service last season's loan and buy next season's inputs. The alternative crops also clashed with the wheat calendar that most smallholders depended on to eat. And cotton offered one last thing the poor could not easily replace: its stalks are a primary cooking fuel for them. So many stayed, propping up a system that was breaking them. One smallholder summed up the arithmetic of defeat: 'We will leave the one acre after getting the crop. We cannot afford it. It is better to do chopa [weeding] and work in someone else's fields and fill our bellies.' IS TECHNOLOGY THE ANSWER? Presently, cotton fields in some parts of South Punjab can be seen covered in plants that are heavy with cotton bolls. Many of these are triple-gene varieties, bred to be immune to glyphosate, a potent weed killer. Such varieties of cotton also claim to provide protection against the threat of bollworms. CEMB has introduced several such cotton varieties and so have some private companies, such as the Evyol Group and the Suncrop Group. Whether these varieties benefit farmers hinges on the support of ecological factors. A farmer reported that the reason why the triple-gene plants are unable to grow in height is due to mounting environmental stress. South Punjab has been experiencing an intensification of extreme weather events. When temperature rises suddenly, the cotton plant experiences the stress of fruiting at the expense of plant growth. The plant does not have enough energy to focus on fruiting and height at the same time. Then there is the issue of plant wilting and sudden plant death due to high temperature. Seed varieties bred for protection against pest complexes are crumbling in the face of climatic stress and environmental change. The inherent inadaptability of technological solutions to rapidly changing conditions casts doubts on how appropriate such approaches are. Seed technologies are designed to be short-term solutions, which need upgrades at best and transitions to entirely new technologies at worst. The expectation and assumption that emerging technologies will provide solutions to agricultural problems risks creating a deficit of accountability, allowing the state and industry to defer responsibility for developing and implementing pro-poor solutions. Farmers and farming stakeholders are expected to navigate the rapidly changing agrarian landscape by themselves. Over time, farmers are habituated to the increasing resource demands of these high-tech solutions and are faced with the choice to either fulfil these or exit the system. Despite this, farmers continue to gravitate towards technological solutions because, in the absence of alternative options, new seed varieties offer some respite, however limited it may be. It is the only choice available to them, besides leaving agriculture for good. *Name changed to protect privacy This account is drawn from 11 months of field research in South Punjab between 2019-2022 and in 2026, including 148 interviews with cotton farmers and with officials, scientists, seed and pesticide dealers, and NGO workers across the districts of Multan, Bahawalpur, Muzzafargarh, Lodhran and Khanewal. Farmers' words are quoted as they were recorded; most interviews were conducted in Urdu, with a local field assistant and, where needed, a Seraiki interpreter The writer is a geographer and researcher. She holds a PhD from Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. She currently serves as one of the principal investigators of SMALLPAK, a research project based in Germany, focusing on local innovations pertaining to agroforestry and integrated livestock-crop production, as well as ways to scale them for resilient and equitable farming systems. She can be reached at mehwish.zuberi@hnee.de Published in Dawn, EOS, August 30th, 2026