Indian wheat for Afghanistan

Pakistan is half-ready to accept Afghanistan's longstanding request to allow import of Indian wheat via the Wagah border - the shortest and least expensive route - although it continues to express reservations on the issue.
According to a report, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani told the Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta at a recent meeting that on principle he agreed with the request. Nonetheless, Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is reported to have expressed the fear in the National Assembly that if Afghanistan was allowed to import the fungus-infected Indian wheat, it might enter our food chain.
The danger, according to him, of this happening is great given the fact that there are no flour mills in Afghanistan and all its wheat grinding is done in Pakistan. Hence, the Indian wheat would easily come into contact with the local produce, increasing that much the chance of our own wheat catching the fungal infection.
It may be recalled that not long after the US started its latest war in Afghanistan, India had offered to send in wheat through Pakistan. Islamabad had rejected the offer out of hand, saying that it contained a fungus that would infect and harm our own wheat crop. The resistance, therefore, is not new. In fact, official experts claim that the disease, known as 'Karnal bunt', has been present in the Indian state of Haryana since the 1930s.
This makes one wonder why India, despite having made significant progress in science and technology, failed all these years to find a remedy for a wheat fungus that makes bread - a staple of Indian diet like ours - smelly and unpalatable. As such, no one should want it. But the Afghans certainly need it. It is possible that the Karnal bunt disease does exist in India but to a limited extent; it is also possible though that our objections to the commodity's transportation to Afghanistan have something to do with regional politics.
After all, influence peddling and economic assistance programmes go hand in hand. But then the main driving force behind India's apparent willingness to resolve the Kashmir issue is its interest in Pakistan as an energy and trade route to the resource-rich Central Asian republics. Indian wheat supplies to Afghanistan may be seen in that light.
Traditionally, Pakistan meets Afghan wheat requirements from its own resources. The recent wheat crisis was caused, among other reasons, by smuggling of some 1.7 million tons of wheat to different neighbouring countries, particularly Afghanistan. The production outlook for this year is not very promising either. It makes eminent sense, therefore, to reduce the pressure on our resources by letting Kabul fend for itself to whatever extent it can.
With regard to the concern about the possible spread of 'Karnal bunt' fungus in our flour mills, the simple solution would be to tell the two countries to get the wheat ground in India.
The passage of flour truckloads through Pakistan will take only a short time, and is unlikely to infect the local wheat during transportation. Apparently, Prime Minister Gillani gave due consideration to all these aspects of the issue when he accepted the Afghan request for extending transit facility to Indian wheat. The remaining reservations also need to go.