Pakistan to join hybrid rice seed exporting countries

Pakistan will join the hybrid rice seed exporting countries club in the year 2018 as a local agricultural seed production company has struck a deal with a Philippines company. "We are increasing our area under cultivation for production of hybrid seeds and hopefully we will be able to export 50 metric tons of hybrid seed to Philippines by next year," said Shahrukh Malik, Executive Seed Division of the Guard Agricultural Research and Services Private (Limited) while talking to a selected group of journalists on Thursday.
Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) Senior Vice Chairman Shahjahan Malik and Head of the Company Shahzad Ali Malik were also present on this occasion. Shahrukh said they had already increased their area under production to 900 acres to meet both national and international demand.
Responding a query that why Philippines is buying seed from them while having a large bank of rice varieties, Shahrukh Malik said, "Our proceed is cheaper than the seed being produced in Philippine and our seed is less labour intensive." He disclosed that they have expanded their seed production farms to 900 acre this year for production of hybrid seed. The climate situation of hybrid rice seeds developed in Sindh is similar to that of Philippines and their experts have visited our farms in Sindh to check the procedure of seed production after which they have made deal with us, he added.
Shahrukh believed that export of hybrid rice seed will open new opportunities in the international market for Pakistan's seed sector besides improving local research and development. "We are working in the agricultural research and seed development business since 1989 with a vision to bring innovation in seed industry by variety development which should consequently lead to poverty alleviation in rural areas as a result of more yield per acre," he said.
Besides developing coarse variety of hybrid seed, our organisation is also working on developing a Basmati hybrid seed with both parents from traditional basmati to produce extra-long grain aromatic rice with higher yields. We have been working on it for the last four to five years besides working for introduction of heat and drought tolerant rice and seed tolerant to salinity. He said this year they are starting field trials of their basmati hybrid and it will be available for commercial usage by the year 2019. The Basmati hybrid is targeted to give a production of 80-100 maund per acre.
"We started hybrid seed production in 2005 with 20 acres which has increased to 900 acre in 2016 and we are the only company doing seed production in Pakistan," Shahrukh added.
He suggested that the government should make it binding on all the 45 seed importing companies to at least produce 20 percent of their total seed in Pakistan. This will revolutionise the seed development and agriculture sector of Pakistan as a result of technology transfer, he hoped.
Shahrukh Malik acknowledged the absence of public-private partnership for seed development and claimed that their company had forwarded their suggestions to the government but the public sector had its own inherited problems. Thus the pace of the private sector is fast as compared to the public. Besides, trust deficit also exists between the public and private sector researchers which need to be ended through co-ordinated initiatives, he suggested.
Talking about the results of introduction of hybrid seed by their company, he said that introduction of hybrid rice has doubled the production and area under IRRI sowing which was 560,000 hectares in the year 2008-2009 and came down to 423,000 hectares in the year 2014-15. While the area under hybrid cultivation was only 84,000 in the year 2008-2009 jumped up to 302,000 hectares in 2014-15. Similarly, IRRI production was 1,949,000 tons in 2008-09 and it came down to 1,161,000 tons in 2014-15 while hybrid rice production was 454,000 tons in 2008-09 but it increased to 1,416,000 tons in 2014-15. This is also reflected in the rice exports as Basmati rice export was 1,137,943 tons in 2010-11 which reduced to 676,630 in 2014-15 while non-Basmati was 2,563,664 in 2010-11 which has increased to 3,054,680 tons in 2014-15.