LAHORE, Feb 5: With over 30 per cent drop in domestic kinnoo production and price going up about 50 per cent, the country may miss the export target of 250,000 ton, claim exporters from the city.
According to them, the alternate bearing phenomenon has cut the production by 30 to 40 per cent. The most optimistic estimates have put the production at 1.5 million ton and the conservative ones claim it to be around 1.2 million ton.
They claim that the slide in production might not have affected the export figure had the price not been increased by over 50 per cent, rendering export non-competitive. Pakistan hardly exports 10 per cent of its total production, but the price factor will hit the exporters hard.
They say the failure to meet export orders this year may also hurt their market-position in the long run; sustainability is the key to market presence. Ensuring sustainability is more of a matter of training, research and infrastructure rather than of the nature. The country has been in this cycle of alternate bearing for decades now, with no preparation for checking it at official level. Such efforts are still in infancy in spite of the government declaring horticulture a priority area, they say.
“The slide in production has increased kinnoo - the fruit that accounts for 97 per cent of exports of the citrus family - price by almost 50 per cent,” says exporter Muhammad Yaqub. The hike is even more in certain cases.
No market in the world can absorb this kind of rise, particularly those where Pakistan has been sending its fruit. They include Iran, Ukraine, the UAE, Russia and Indonesia. Iran reduces duty on Pakistani kinnoo to zero per cent from Jan 20 every year, he says. Even then it is hard to compete with other exporters in the Iranian market.
Another exporter from city says the kinnoo trade has been expanding for the last few years. Its export from Pakistan has increased from $80 million in 2001 to $130 million in 2006. In terms of volume, the export stood at 80,000 ton in 2001 and went up to 200,000 ton in 2006. On an average, $10 million foreign exchange is being added up in the national earnings through horticulture exports.
These figures show the potential that the kinnoo export has if properly done. But the alternate bearing phenomenon has hobbled it to basics. One can gauge the fluctuation from the production figures, which have been teetering between 2.1 million ton and 1.2 million ton. The world trade in citrus fruits is also continuously growing with more and more countries joining the fray. Prominent among them are: China, Spain, Turkey, Morocco, Australia, USA and Canada. Of them, Pakistan has been suffering from the wildest fluctuations.
But all prospects of increasing kinnoo export are being compromised by fluctuations at home, says a fruit processor from the city.
The agriculture planners know that fluctuations can be controlled by good agricultural practices (GAP), as being done by the rest of the world. Of late, the GAP process has been started in Pakistan, but it is yet to gain the required momentum, he says.
The fruit processor says most of the kinnoo production is concentrated in Sargodha district, which produces over 90 per cent of country’s yield. The government should create institutions to train farmers in kinnoo production according to international standards and practices. Consumers in the markets, where Pakistan is currently sending its produce, are not as quality conscious as in other high-price markets, he says.
In order to target European and American markets, which can afford much higher price, the country has to produce pest-free kinnoo, treat the fruit at post-harvest level and improve packaging practices. All these steps need training and care to the very minute details, he says.
The fruit processor says farmers in the country are still unaware of the possibilities and ways to capture them. But researchers and policy makers know all these realities. They must create institutions and infrastructure to produce kinnoo as per international standards and sensitivities. —Staff Reporter