ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, the world’s fourth-largest rice exporter, expects its yield to remain strong this year despite devastating floods that have submerged large swathes of farmland, the head of the country’s rice exporters’ association said on Friday, dismissing reports of catastrophic crop losses.
The country’s rice exports have been steadily rising, with Pakistan shipping around 6 million tons in the last fiscal year and earning over $3.2 billion in revenue, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The sector is vital to the national economy, providing livelihoods to millions of farmers and contributing significantly to GDP.
The Pakistan Business Forum, a national platform for economic and policy dialogue, recently claimed the floods had wiped out 60 percent of the rice crop, but the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) strongly rejected the figure.
“Out of 12.2 million acres under cultivation, we expect at least 12 million acres of crop size this year,” Malik Faisal, the association’s chairman, told Arab News, suggesting losses of about 200,000 acres.
He called the 60 percent loss estimate “absolutely absurd,” noting that Sindh, Pakistan’s main rice-producing province and the backbone of non-Basmati exports, had largely escaped flood damage.
