Rice exporters demand subsidies for growers

KARACHI: Rice exporters on Tuesday demanded the government to give targeted cash subsidies to the grain farmers to help them compete in the international market.
Chairman Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) Rafique Suleman, in a statement, requested the government to provide rice farmers with free seeds, free pesticides, free electricity, free water, free dryers and other equipments to help them decrease cost of production.
Suleman said currently the government is indirectly financially assisting farmers by supplying gas to the fertiliser industry at subsidised rates rather than giving targeted cash subsidies to the farmers.
He said rice exports remained stagnant for the last five years due to its supply at low prices in the international markets.
“The biggest rice export of $2.2 billion was recorded back in 2009/10 and since then the export figures have more or less been stagnant,” he added.
REAP chief said the world’s leading rice producers and exporters Thailand, India, and Vietnam have been carrying the surplus grain for the last three years.
Prices of paddy and rice in Pakistan have dropped more than 40 percent, rendering huge losses to farmers of Sindh and Punjab.
“Thailand, Vietnam and India are already passing on hidden incentives to their rice industries and they are considering more incentives, which will leave Pakistan with huge unsold surplus of rice even for the next year,” he said.
During the last 15 years, the global rice trade has grown almost three-fold to 33 million tons from 12 million tons. Pakistan's milled rice output has increased 25 percent to six million tonnes over the same period.
Suleman said the country has low-yielding rice varieties compared with Thailand and India. It also faces post-harvest management losses, he added.
He said absence of researches to develop rice seed varieties is one of the major causes of low-yield.
He added the last internationally-acclaimed seed, developed in Pakistan 20 years ago, was Super Basmati, which has lost its economic viability with farmers.
Moreover, China was the main market of Pakistani Irri-6. This year's export to China is less than 200,000 tonne, which is very low as compared to the last four years’ figure.
Traders exported 362,000 metric tons of rice in 2011/12, 589,000mt in 2012/13 and 353,000mt in 2013/14 to China.