If the government falters in its responsibility to ensure health standards of fruits and vegetable exports to EU Pakistan may lose a huge potential market that is reckoned up to be of a billion dollar. It will deal a massive blow to the country’s rural economy already under stress for want of much needed modernisation .

Last month European Union banned import of mangoes and vegetables from India due to concerns over the presence of pests and insects in consignments. Brussels endorsed the ban suggested by the EU Standing Committee on Plant Health on import of mango, bitter gourd, eggplant, etc from India citing ‘significant shortcomings in the phytosanitary certification system’.

According to reports in Indian papers, pests were found in 207 consignments of fruits and vegetables in 2013. The revision of the EU decision is expected in December 2015.

On the question regarding the prospects of Pakistan benefiting from the exit of India from EU fruit vegetable market traders and exporters in Pakistan seem to be nervous about a possible ban on their exports, to explore the possibility of capturing the market space vacated by India.

The hierarchy in the ministry of commerce was hopeful that Pakistan will handle the situation with the cooperation of traders and contacts in SANCO office in Brussels. SANCO is entrusted with the responsibility to protect public and animal health and ensure that food is safe from farm to fork throughout Europe.

“With approaching mango export season a high level meeting was held recently to take stock of the situation and to apprise the relevant agencies including Trade and Development Authority to ward off the risk of ban in Europe”, an official of the federal ministry of commerce told Dawn over telephone from Islamabad.

“Last year out of 2,600 consignments from Pakistan about 118 were rejected, during snap checking, for not meeting food safety standards in Europe. We intend to closely monitor the supply chain to ensure the quality of consignments”, another official who wished not to be identified told Dawn.

“Three issues need to be dealt with in this regard: (a) Proper packaging of perishable consignments; (b) checking fertiliser residue in agriculture commodities; (c) presence of pests and fruit flies”, an expert informed.

Pakistan is said to have developed systems and facilities in Multan, Lahore and Karachi for treatment and certification of perishables for export.

Pakistan exported 150,000 MT of mangoes in 2013 that fetched $60 million from Europe which is about 16pc of total market of the fruit in Europe, according to an exporter.

“The crop is so far very good and we hope to increase exports this year”, Waheed Ahmed, former chairman, Pakistan Fruit and Vegetable Association and a leading commercial exporter of perishables said.

“The fruit export business has evolved in the country to match developed market standards. Gone are the days when we used to deal at fruit mandies (markets) in cities. Today most commercial exporters buy directly from farms and invest in the treatment and packaging, get required certifications before loading their consignments”, Waheed said.

He told this scribe that Pakistani farm produce fetch half the price of other competing countries of the region for a number of reasons. He believed the ban will not hurt India much because their presence was negligible in fruit market. “As far as I know they exported no more than 2,000 consignments of mango to Europe last year. They specialise in value added mango pulp where they enjoy the lion share of about 80pc.”.

Over the past few weeks, export bodies have sent a number of recommendations to the government demanding strict monitoring of mango export to EU.

Alarmed by the ban on India, exporter associations have asked the government to allow EU protocol- compliant exporters. The protocol obligates procurement of fruits directly from farm that follow health guidelines. The exporters must document the information on pesticide spray, hygiene, inspections by Plant protection department, grading and follow code on post harvest intervals.

They advised the government to direct the TDAP to assist more farmers to acquire Global GAP certification with stress on following protocols for pack house operations. Besides the packaging and port handling must also meet standards. The labeling must also meet standards. They felt there is a need to train fruit handlers to ensure quality grading

. The laboratory analysis should be mandatory. They demanded that the TDAP shares with exporters at least 50pc of the extra cost of meeting standard demands by the EU. All consignments need to be scanned before loading. Exporters whose consignments were rejected frequently should be blacklisted.

They want the food ministry to introduce E-beam technology in Pakistan for a viable quarantine solution.

The risk is from some irresponsible traders and corrupt elements in regulatory apparatus. Only the government with better management can contain the risk.