11/03/2021
Losing the basmati battle
Pakistan’s rice exports have remained over 4 million tons in the last three years but a lack of research at the state level is invariably causing it to lose its high-priced Basmati market to India that is regularly introducing high-yielding long-grain varieties.
In fact the country is sustaining rice exports because of constant increase in the export of non-basmati varieties. The private sector has introduced several high-yielding rice varieties that enabled the farmers to earn more and exporters to compete successfully with both India and Thailand.
India is the largest exporter of rice in the world with 9.7 million tons followed by Thailand and Vietnam. Pakistan is ranked 4th with exports of 4.6 million ton. Bulk of Pakistani rice exports are non-basmati with basmati accounting for less than one million ton. In 2011 Pakistani basmati exports were above 1.1 million ton. A decade later the exports varied from 0.7 to 0.9 million ton. India, our only rival in Basmati, exported 4.4 million ton long-grain in 2019. In 2018-19 as well as 2019-20, total rice shipments remained above 4m tons. But the exports of Basmati rice stood at 791,000 tons and 890,000 tons in 2018-19 and 2019-20, respectively. This fiscal the basmati exports are constantly declining.
Basmati is special long-grain aromatic rice, mainly produced in Pakistan. This is the reason most of the research and development in this regard had to take place in Pakistan as well as India.
Pakistani scientists led by Public sector researcher Dr Abdul Majeed in 1970 introduced a better-yielding and longer-grained basmati variety under the name of Basmati 370 with grain length of 6 mm. The Indians smuggled this variety and started research in their centres. The problem with seeds is that per acre productivity degenerates with the passage of time. This is the reason researchers work constantly to bring out new varieties. After a gap of 15 years another variety under the name of Basmati 385 with grain length of 6.6 mm was introduced again by the same researcher but in his private capacity.
The research at the state level has almost dried. The Indians improved our Basmati varieties. They successfully shifted the trend from aroma to grain size. They introduced a variety named 1121 with a grain size of 7 mm. That almost completely wiped out Pakistan from the Basmati market. At the start of this century, Indian long-grain basmati exports were less than Pakistan but now they are five times higher.
The yield of our old basmati varieties dwindled to 30-35 maunds (40kg) per acre while the Indian variety yield was 55-60 maunds per acre. Naturally their price was also lower.
According to renowned rice researcher Shahzad Ali Malik, private sector was able to introduce non-basmati high yielding seeds first through imports and then through transfer of technology. “The private sector is in constant touch with their foreign principals to remain updated on any new research,” Malik said.
“Moreover they have gained expertise to come up with their own high yielding varieties which some of them now export to their principles and other countries. As far as basmati is concerned the private sector has to depend on local research.” He said the public sector that introduced varieties some 35-50 years back was now lying dormant. “Our research is in isolation as the public sector never interacts with the private sector in this regard,” Malik said.
He said in the absence of new seed varieties in Pakistan the farmers were forced to use smuggled 1121 Indian Basmati varieties. “The usage has spread to almost 40 percent of the basmati area under cultivation,” he said adding, “Now a seed variety Pk1121 has been approved by the state that is produced from smuggled seed”.
Malik further said this seed was now in the degeneration stage and its yield had declined from 60 maunds per acre to 50-55 maunds per acre. It would continue to decline with the passage of time, he said adding that since the basic research was not done it would be difficult to improve the variety.
In the meantime the Indian researchers are working hard to further improve not only the yield but also the grain size of basmati rice. They have developed varieties with grain size of almost 8 mm or above.
These are at trial stage and are likely to be marketed shortly. This way Indians would again be one step ahead of our varieties. We will not be able to compete with India unless we start developing our own high yielding long-grain basmati varieties.
At the current long-grain basmati rate we have lost over $3 billion yearly market to India that exports long-grain basmati with almost negligible aroma. Our variety has a natural aroma and with same grain length we can wipe out the Indians from the basmati market
