RICE is an important food cash crop and also one of the main export items. It accounts for 6.8 per cent of the value-added in agriculture and 1.7 per cent in the GDP. A water-intensive crop, rice production is also characterized by significant changes in area under cultivation and yield.

Though the highest source of foreign exchange in ‘food group’, per hectare yield of rice remains fragile. Like other crops it too, is vulnerable to all kinds of exigencies such as climatic changes, pest attacks, and unsuitable soil conditions. The commodity contributes about 5.7 per cent in foreign exchange earnings. Pakistani rice is superior in the world market for its aroma, long grain and taste. Basmati and IRRI are the leading varieties.

Basmati, the king of rice, is held in highest esteem the world over. It is just one crop a year and is exported mainly to Dubai, South Africa, the UK, Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Malaysia, and the US. The buyers of non-Basmati rice are Afghanistan, Iran, Ivory Coast, Dubai, Bangladesh, Kenya, Iraq, Indonesia, Morocco, Malaysia, Kuwait, Cameroon, Mauritius, Nigeria, Portuguese, Guinea, Qatar, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Oman, Togo, and Benin.

The only competitor of Pakistani Basmati is India which competes on the prices. China, the world’s biggest market, is one of the potential rice export markets. Its obligation to the WTO requires it to import up to four million tons of rice, annually. IRRI-6, IRRI-9, Basmati 385 and Super basmati are famous in China. Iran is another potential market.

The growers of this commodity are nowadays organizing protest rallies, and hunger and shutter-down strikes in upper and central Sindh. They are protesting against the drastic reduction in crop prices.

Growers, especially of Qambar, Shahdadkot, Jecobabad, and Larkana district are protesting since the mid- November. On December 2, a strike was observed in Shahdadkot, Qambar and other towns of Upper Sindh. However, the federal as well as the Sindh government paid no attention to it.

According to growers, this year’s crop was satisfactory. Yet, they face the dilemma of sharp price reductions of their produce. Last year, the mill price of high quality rice was Rs500 per 40kg which has been reduced to Rs390, while for normal crops it is Rs280 as against the previous Rs400.

A sharp increase in the prices of inputs such as oil, fertilizer, and pesticides has raised the cost of production and transportation of the produce from the fields to the market. Over and above, the reduced price will not even let the farmer recover his input costs, what to say of income generation.

Though, growers are protesting against the millers, the latter have their own story. They contend that the exporters have reduced the rice crop prices. Last year, exporters purchased a 100kg bag of Irri-9 rice for Rs1,500. This year, they have reduced the prices to Rs1,300 and Rs1,330.

According to millers, there are about 30 export companies who have formed a cartel to keep the prices low. According to exporters, they have already purchased large quantities and are facing difficulty in exporting it because of the transportation problem.

Whatever may be the real cause but the lowering of prices by millers and exporters, despite the boom in international market and the government apathy, are badly hitting the growers. Despite sustaining heavy losses and a continuous protest, the growers are not yet rescued by the government.

Insiders term the government apathy a policy constraint as the country is an active WTO member. The government has to adopt structural adjustments of the World Bank and the IMF who had already withdrawn all kinds of support to the grower, including the support price fixation, subsidies in inputs and purchase of the rice through the Rice Export Corporation - the agency already abolished on the instructions of international lenders.

Despite these constraints, the federal government should come to the rescue of growers as their livelihood and food security is under threat thus forcing them to come on to the roads.

The government needs to take the following actions urgently:

* If the revival of the mechanism to fix support price is not possible then the government should form a ‘Price Monitoring Committee’. The committee should comprise representatives of the growers, the millers and the exporters for the price review and to study trends in the international market for a fair rice price.

* The government should reactivate the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to purchase rice directly from the growers. This will create competition in the market which would ensure increase or at least price stability of Sindh’s rice crop.

* Although there are good rice varieties in Sindh, the non-registration of these as export varieties is a key problem. Exporters usually purchase the Sindh varieties and mix them into the registered Punjab lots for exporting under the registered label. Therefore, hurdles in the registration of the Sindh rice varieties, including Ari-6, PK-198, etc., should be removed.