Secretary General (Federal) of the Businessmen Panel (BMP) and former Chairman on Horticulture Exports FPCCI, Ch Ahmad Jawad said that Pakistani mango crossed the export volume of 100,000 tonnes after the span of eight years and it is expected that export volume may touch around 120,000 tonnes before the closure of the season which will be completed by end of this month, comparatively last year it closed around 80,000 tonnes only.
Jawad said these figures do not include the unofficial trade with Iran, Afghanistan and beyond, the same figure of 100,000 tonnes was touched in 2011-12 after that the mango exports faced a sudden drop due to strict import conditions by the EU countries due to issue of fruit fly.
He was of the view that Pakistan needed to improve the ease of doing business not only internally but also externally. For example, the Middle Eastern airlines' fares for cargo shipments were up to 20 percent higher for Pakistani exporters than those for Indian exporters of mangoes.
In 2018-19, most of the mango shipments could not be loaded due to high temperature in Sindh, therefore, Sindh Government and PHDEC should establish chillers/cold storage facilities for mango exporters in Karachi. "Mango doesn't face only the cold storage problem, it faces a plethora of other issues due to which Pakistan does not export more than 5-7 percent of the total mangos produced," he said.
Pakistan could not introduce its mango in many of the western countries. "We export mostly to the Middle Eastern nations - more than 50 percent - and in western countries only people belonging to South Asia are familiar with our mango. Other communities are not aware of Pakistan's mango," he added. Jawad further said that to improve competitiveness, it needs to control the pests.
He said that there is a need to boost commercial varieties and introduce new ones. The entomologist stressed the need for increasing the area of cultivation and giving benefits to farmers.
"Right now, the middleman takes everything, hence, farmers should be made part of the export process." Similarly there is a gap between production of Sindhri and Chaunsa varieties. Due to which, there is a break in export of the two varieties, that is filled by India's Alphonso mango.
"We must be working on new varieties that can cover this gap and maintain market share for Pakistan," he added and said that there is also a need to improve the flood irrigation system in mango orchards and switch to drip irrigation.
Jawad briefed that this would not only save water but would also improve the yield and quality of the fruit. He urged the government to encourage farmers and provide them a direction.
On the other hand new mango belt - starting from Bhimber to Mirpur (Kashmir) right down to Gujrat and Sialkot are also getting louder in demanding attention for their variety of desi mango. "This variety is mainly used for local value addition (like pickle) but should be marketed globally as an organic variety," he said.
Kashmir's foothills escape frost which is the main threat to mangos. Both topography and sociology favour the fruit as most of the youth from this region resides outside Pakistan and the older ones take care of trees and organically maintain the orchards, he added.