Traders fear stricter pesticide residue norms in Middle East could hit basmati exports

Exporters say that they had already managed to get notification from the Punjab government banning the use of 10 pesticides with effect from August 12 this year till the harvesting of the crop and now they are seeking the state government’s help to impress upon the central government to ban these pesticides in all basmati-growing states to save the basmati export industry which has been bearing the brunt of the stringent MLR norms in terms of rejection of consignments for the past few years.

But experts say that as agriculture is a state subject, it’s the responsibility of the state governments, exporters and farmers to work together towards making basmati pesticide-free, instead of depending on the Centre for this.

Dr A K Gupta (retired), former director of Basmati Export Development Foundation (BEDF), which was founded by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) that comes under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, while speaking to The Indian Express said that Punjab and Haryana have 80% share in basmati exports, while the remaining states like UP, Uttarakhand, etc. have just 20% share. In both the major exporter states, a farmer education programme has been going on for the past five years and now, it’s high time to scale up this programme, he said, adding that all the basmati-growing states must develop some model to keep the crop free from chemical usage.

“As agriculture is a state subject, primarily the state governments in association with exporters and farmers must work on a model to sensitise all stakeholders to the problems of usage of chemicals in the crop so that a trust relationship can be developed between farmers (seller) and exporters (buyer) to grow pesticide-free basmati,” Gupta said, adding that “here we need to practise better agriculture rather depending on a policy”.

Gupta says that there is a need to educate farmers on growing new varieties of basmati which are high in yield and resistant to several diseases. This can also reduce the usage of chemicals in the crop.

A senior officer in the Punjab agriculture department says that if there is no trust between basmati growers and exporters, then even a ban on pesticides won’t work because farmers can procure these from any other state where they are not banned.

The former director of BEDF also said that basmati originates from a specific geographical area, as a result of which it possesses unique characteristics and qualities of GI (geographical indication) tag and it’s kind of trademark in the international market because of which it is always in high demand. “The only thing we need is a little good farming practice in it to enhance its export.”

The region located in Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) below the foothills of the Himalayas, spread across seven states – viz. Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Uttarakhand, Western UP (30 districts) and Delhi – falls under the GI area.

India has exported basmati rice to the tune of $12 billion in the last three years, including $4.3 billion in 2019-20, $4.02 billion in 2020-21 and $3.5 billion in 2021-22.

Ashok Sethi, director, Punjab Rice Millers & Exporters’ Association, and a leading basmati exporter, Amritsar, said that the government must make Hi-tech Modern Pesticide Testing Laboratory at Amritsar more effective to check the pesticide residue at the farm level as it will help exporters test the residue level at the very beginning itself and it can sensitise such farmers to the pesticide problems as well.

He said that basmati rice shipments from India are getting rejected/returned for the pesticide residues which is causing a lot of problems to the exporters and “if we have a laboratory here, we can check it before exporting”.

The commerce ministry had recently said that the exports of basmati rice rose by 25.54% in April-June this year to around Rs 9,160 crore ($1.15 billion).