Inside the raid that halted Pakistan’s agricultural trade

Early last week, agricultural trade in Pakistan came to a grinding halt. Overnight, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested nine inspectors of the Department of Plant Protection, which is a department of the Ministry for National Food Security and Research. 

The raid, by some accounts, was given the final green light by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif himself. With nine of their inspectors in custody, the remaining DPP inspectors stationed at Pakistan’s ports became reluctant to inspect and clear shipments leaving and entering Pakistan, afraid they could get caught up in the situation. 

So what was going on? Behind the scenes, a government committee had been investigating issues in consignments of Basmati Rice going from Pakistan to the European Union this year. Many of these consignments had been stopped at the ports because they had certain contaminants in them. 

This is a bigger deal than it sounds. Over the past few years, Pakistan has become the dominant exporter of Basmati to the EU precisely because Pakistani consignments have been cleaner and contaminant free compared to rice shipped out from India. This year’s export, at a time when India is already reopening its export of rice, may be detrimental to Pakistan’s foothold in the EU’s Basmati market.