The province of Balochistan, endowed with a unique environment for the production of a great variety of quality fruits, alone has the potential of exporting fruits worth 500 million dollar annually.
The province, with diverse climates ranging from temperate to subtropical and tropical, produces nearly one million tonnes of different variety of fruits annually i.e. 90 percent grapes, cherry, and almonds; 60 percent peach, pomegranate, and apricot; 34 percent apples, and is the fifth largest producer of dates with an estimated production volume of 583,000 tonnes.
Talking to Business Recorder member export, CEO Harvest Trading, Ahmad Jawad said that Balochistan had tremendous potential for developing fruit farms. Serious efforts should be made towards bringing about a shift from traditional to technology-based farming.
Various studies revealed that a large number of fruits were lost due to various reasons beginning from their production points till they reached the customer, he said. Local farmers are faced with a plethora of problems from planting to marketing of their products as they lack essential facilities and infrastructure to market their products and earn profits.
Balochistan has the poorest communication and infrastructure system which results in higher post-harvest and transportation losses. Further, long distances and time involved affect the profits made by the farmer which discourages him greatly, he said.
Moreover, the absence of cold storages and air-conditioned transportation facilities for fruits like grapes also increase the risk of damage to fruits. Soil test also needs to be conducted on regular basis at the time of planting a fruit crop. For instance, planting season for apple crop in Northern Balochistan commences from February 15 to March 15. There is also a need to ensure supply of fertilisers to the fruit growers at subsidised rates.
Jawad said what is urgently needed is to enable the farmers to sell their produce directly eliminating the role of middlemen in the marketing channel. He suggested that the government should provide relief to the local growers of fruit crops by providing them essential infrastructure facilities like farm to market road, cold-storage houses, and regular and sustainable supply of electricity to enhance production and export of quality fruits through Pakistan Horticulture Development and Export Company (PHDEC) who had the mandate to promote horticulture export sector and provincial government. All efforts are needed to be directed for bringing about a shift from traditional to a technology-based farming system, he said.
He urged that government should extend credit to small farmers for horticulture development with the help of ZTBL. "Lack of finance restricts the cash-starved small farmers to harvest and market their fruit crop. Small farmers'' access to loan facility should be ensured to attractions and incentives for the foreign investors. Chinese companies also were successfully working in different sectors there."