The agriculture and food business, in the last few decades, have changed in terms of the demand-supply, cropping pattern, international trade, consumer preferences, technological advancement, trading environment and the supply chain.
With agriculture being in focus in multilateral trade negotiations, most of the countries are facilitating their domestic sector keeping in view the global development. We in Pakistan are not fully aware of the emerging trends in respect to needs of food and fibre.
Agriculture has undergone more changes, both in production technologies and marketing strategies and Pakistan is no exception to it. The export trend shows that the commoditization of farm produce would not be enough for agribusiness firms. They need to adopt a strategy through value-addition and brand-building.
The strategy of pushing large volume of standardized products worked well till now, because consumers sought basic staples for cooking meals in their kitchens. But the change in lifestyle, increased income and preference for convenience, foods offer agribusiness firms new opportunities in the processed food and ready-to-eat segments. Hygienically packed cut-salad, cut-fruits, might be visible very soon in retail shops.
Safety and traceability of food ingredients are major concerns in the international trade. The ISO standards are being observed in food safety, production technologies, processing procedures, and packaging, labelling and chemical adulterants. These concerns place a pressure on the agribusiness community to provide complete information about the sources of inputs in their produce.
Many new technologies are being developed to track down the sources. In Pakistani mango and orange exports, we face a potential threat of chemical residues due to heavy pesticide sprays. Unfortunately there is not any efficient check on the use of agri-chemicals that have been banned since long in the rest of the world.
Our rice crop might come under the scrutiny of food safety in the near future. During the last decade, organic agriculture has gained international recognition as a valid alternative to conventional food products. The growing consciousness of health hazards posed due to the contamination of farm produce by chemical fertilizers and pesticides has gained a momentum to this form of farming.
Countries might be biased to choose for agricultural produce that has been grown at some minimal level of agri-chemicals and fertilizers. It is indispensable to make suitable provisions in our policy so as our agriculture community may learn to adopt organic farming.
Contamination-free cotton is vital for quality production and cost effectiveness in the textile sector. For this purpose proper training and guidance to the grower and ginner are very important. Procurement of contamination-free cotton needs to be ensured. The overly use of pesticides has threatened the cotton crop of physical impurities that might make it unfit for trade in the international markets.
Presently, the share of cotton and clothing in our total exports is around 65 per cent. The government has adopted a very progressive trade policy towards cotton and cotton products. However there is still a lot to be done for creating awareness among the farmers, transporters and the ginners. The country has a narrow export base in terms of both products and markets. It needs to be broadened. Financial support of ginners is required for quality up-gradation.
For providing improved returns on a sustained basis by an improved access to exports, the concept of Agri Export Zones needs to be adopted. First, it involves identification of products and then necessary steps should be taken so as to exploit the market potential. It is expected that the Agri Export Zones would bring down the cost of production, enhance the acceptability and competitiveness in the international market with better pricing formula. It will contribute to the trade-related research and development and increase employment opportunities as well.
Pakistan needs to fully adopt measures such as the warehousing of domestic products abroad, special export zones, garment cities and brand acquisition. All this would tremendously increase the Pakistan’s leverage in international and domestic markets.
In the present scenario of marketing, role of the government offices has become very essential. These agencies collect, analyze and distribute information about global supply and demand, trade trends and emerging market opportunities. They seek improved market access for local products and improvement programmes designed to build new markets and to maintain the competitive position of domestic products in the global marketplace.
There is a great significance of providing information used to plan and develop strategies for improving market access, protecting Pakistani interests under the trade agreements and developing programmes and policies to make products more competitive. There is a need of more foreign officers serving as the diplomats, negotiators, analysts, and the marketing representatives of the producers, the processors, and the exporters.
Successful take-off of sustained agri-export growth can be achieved through a judicious mix of different price policies and institutional support measures by the government. The credit, extension services, land reform, seed banks, crop insurance, storage facilities, road and transport, market and distribution systems are all equally important for enhancing the exports. This policy mix would provide big incentives and means to farmers to produce and innovate.
The producers should be well-informed about the demand and supply trends for various agricultural commodities in the international market. List of prioritized commodities on the basis of their comparative advantage should be prepared. This information should also be transferred to our farming community so that they may adjust their cropping pattern and other activities.
Farmers should be informed and trained in the adoption of new varieties, technologies and methods of marketing. Their produce should be compatible with the international standards.
To cope with the changing environment, our farmers, traders, processors and policy makers should revise their priorities. Our priority should not be to collect large amounts of data with attractive analysis and presentation but the real task should be its transferability to the right persons in the form and manner they can understand.
Further, Pakistan has a lot of unrealized potential in the field of fruits and vegetables in the Middle East, the Gulf States, the South East Asia and the Far East. We should concentrate on quality, grading and packing of our produce. Foreign customers would like to have elegant, attractive and properly labelled packages, in addition to the good quality of the fruits.