The death of Pakistani Basmati

“Mushki Chawalaan dey bharrey aan kothey ,

Soyan Pati tey Jhoneray chari dey neen,

Basmati, Musafaree, Begumee soon Harchand de zardiay dhari de neen,

Bareek safed Kashmir, Kabul khurush jeray hoor te pari dey neen …..”

“…Fragrant rice fills the storerooms wide, Where golden-hued and common grains reside, Basmati, Musafaree, Begumee blend, Harchand and Yellowish, in rows they descend. Fine white Kashmiri, Kabuli delight, Fit for the fairies, in their radiant light, For beautiful women, with grace in their eyes, These treasures of rice, in abundance, lie…”

• Excerpt and translation from Heer Ranjha 

LAHORE - Aroma. This was the one word Profit heard most in its pursuit of this story.

“A lot of people talk about the smell of Basmati Rice,” says one small-scale farmer from Hafizabad. “They mention how each grain of rice elongates while cooking, how they stay separate, and the way simply boiling these grains brings a smell that is unmatched. I cannot describe it, but the feeling of lifting the lid and the steam from the rice exploding into your nose is addictive. But to those of us that grow it, we start smelling it much earlier. Within weeks of planting, our fields are engulfed in an aroma as soon as the crop begins to germinate. It is the smell I expect to find in heaven.”

The existence of Basmati Rice in what is today India and Pakistan is well recorded. The first mention of it is in Waris Shah’s tragic love poem Heer Ranjha. That is the excerpt at the beginning of this article. The unparalleled utility of Basmati is also mentioned in the Ain i Akbari, the book documenting the 16th Century court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar.

Since the late 1990s, Basmati has become an international phenomenon. The demand for this unique variety of rice has increased in the European and American markets, and where there is demand there is supply. Supermarkets all over the European Union and the United States are stocked full with Basmati, and this special kind of rice comes only from India or Pakistan. In the United States, it even inspired a copycat that tried passing itself off as basmati, until a lawsuit by the Indian government prompted it to change its name to Texmati, so called because it is grown in Texas.

In the past 10 years, Pakistan has exported Basmati Rice in the range of 4.8 lakh metric tons at its lowest in 2016-17, to 8.65 lakh metric tons at its highest in 2019-20. On average, Pakistan has exported around 6 lakh metric tons of Basmati Rice, mostly to Europe and the Middle East in the past decade. Production of Basmati is much higher than exports, but there is also a very strong domestic demand for Basmati. In the year 2023-24, early estimates suggest Pakistan has increased its Basmati exports by at least 24%, raising them to nearly 7.5 lakh metric tonnes. The export of non-basmati rice, on the other hand, has risen by nearly 32% to over 40 lakh metric tonnes. 

The cause of this rise does not have to do with increased productivity, or more farmers turning towards rice. It is simply a result of India’s decision to clamp down on its own rice exports last year. 

Why do India’s actions have such a ripple effect? Because they are the largest rice producers and exporters in the world. 

Of course, this was not always the case. 

Back in the 1960s, India was consistently one of the largest importers of rice in the world. Pakistan, in comparison, was a significant exporter all the way through to the late 1980s. This started to change in the 1990s, and in what has been a dramatic turn of events, in the past decade India has consistently beaten Pakistan and the rest of the world in both Basmati and non-Basmati exports. The secret to India’s success is a progressive and aggressive rice export policy that has made very effective use of marketing despite Pakistan’s superior quality and variety of Basmati. But perhaps more importantly, India has been aided by the sheer complacency on the part of Pakistani farmers, millers, exporters, and the government. 

What we could see in the next few years is the complete decimation of the competitive advantage Pakistan’s variety of Basmati has over India. So how did we get here?