Failure to capitalize upon available technology and to carry out capacity building of farmers has historically resulted in around 80 percent of the crop getting converted into dry dates and exported to India at throwaway prices. The Remaining 20 percent is sun-dried and turned into fresh dates. Even the fresh dates, due to faulty postharvest practices, are damaged to an extent that they are no longer exportable as table fruit and are exported as industrial raw material, which again results in an extremely low value for exporters.
Pakistan’s date sector shows what happens when policymakers fail to identify an important agricultural sub-sector and leave it at the mercy of farmers and mediocre exporters.
With fruit from the previous crop still lying in the warehouses, prices are likely to drop further as the fresh crop starts to arrive in the market by around mid-July. At these prices, Pakistani dates would become extremely attractive as raw material for processing into value-added products such as date syrup, date paste and date sugar; with huge international demand particularly from the confectionary industry in high-paying health conscious markets. With high moisture and sugar contents, Pakistani dates, particularly Aseel and Begum Jangi, are extremely suitable for such processing.
Pakistan’s date sector shows what happens when policymakers fail to identify an important agricultural sub-sector and leave it at the mercy of farmers and mediocre exporters. It also highlights the risk of overdependence on a single market. However, nature seems to be now forcing us to undo past mistakes and benefit from the available opportunity. It is an opportune time for policy makers, both at federal and provincial levels to promote Pakistan’s date sector amongst investors, both domestic as well as international.
Disturbance in Middle East, the world’s main date producing region, could seriously disrupt the future supply of date fruit and value-added date products. Setting up date processing facilities in Pakistan may not be in the interest of Pakistan alone. Producers of value-added date products may actually be looking for such opportunities outside the volatile Middle East.
Setting up date processing facilities in the country will not only help safeguard the interests of growers but would also contribute towards earning export dollars. There also exists an opportunity for setting up common facilities for curing of dates. In the face of complete failure by the government to set up such facilities, the field is wide open to private investors for setting up the date dehydration facilities where raw dates could be brought in by farmers for mechanized dehydration against a charge– a viable business with significant potential for growth.
However, for now it seems the present government, like most previous ones, is failing to focus on agriculture, the untapped goldmine, and trying everything else under the sun to revamp the economy.
