ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ability to comply with international trade rules for increasing agricultural exports has been boosted by a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) supported project for increasing the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) capacity of plant and animal health regulatory officials of the federal and provincial governments.

USDA has spent over $4 million in a six-year ‘distance learning programme’ which will strengthen the country’s efforts to increase agricultural trade.

“Proper regulations of exports and imports are key to meeting the demands of foreign buyers as well as protecting Pakistan’s domestic agriculture and consumers. We are hopeful that these courses will serve as a resource for the country’s phytosanitary regulations,” said Agriculture Counselor David Williams.

Since 2011, USDA, the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), and Texas A&M University joined forces to create the distance learning project to bolster Pakistan’s SPS skills and knowledge.

Sharing details of the project during her interaction with media here on Wednesday, Deborah Hamilton, International Programme Specialist of USDA said a core group of thirty officials from the Department of Plant Protection and provincial agricultural departments who have been trained and applying their increased knowledge of trade rules on-the-job.

The success of these training modules in Pakistan has made SPS Distance Learning Modules a key component of a new USAID initiative called the ‘Food Safety Network’ which will expand the curriculum to include animal health and food safety and deploy them globally in several languages.

Speaking on the occasion, Regional Director of CABI Dr Babar Bajwa described the agricultural trade as difficult. “It not only brings fruits and vegetables into the country and sends out, it also imports and exports lots of diseases and pest. This all is due to WTO era,” he pointed out.

About the impact of the training of plant protection departments, Dr Bajwa said indicators of Pakistan’s horticultural exports show in 2012 export of fresh fruits and vegetables totaled around $350 million per year and currently, it has increased to around $600m.

Referring to the banana disease in Pakistan, he said the farmers of Tando Jam and Tando Allahyar are battling it and need to be protected.

“This disease has come to Pakistan through trade. If we are not safeguarding ourselves, it means we are not giving level playing field to our farmers,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2017