Rice crop is of great economic importance for Pakistan, as it is second staple food after wheat, and is second to cotton as foreign exchange earner In 1997-98, Pakistan exported rice worth over US$550 million and there is a great potential of increasing foreign exchange earnings badly needed for the country Necessarily, all-out efforts should be made to increase the export to $700 million and first then to one billion. It is not difficult to achieve these targets provided we increase per acre yield and improve the quality of exportable rice. To improve the quality and sale at high price per unit, the Government has made some structural and administrative changes in monitoring the purity of exportable rice. These changes involve analysis of rice of different varieties by the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REACP) and fixing the minimum export price. The REAP has proved its performance by checking the quality of brown rice exported to Europe in 1996-97. The confidence of rice importers in quality of Pa kistani rice is gradually building up and exports are steadily increasing.
In the last 50 years, Pakistan achieved phenomenal increase in rice production. In 1947, the area under rice in Pakistan was arounds 8,56,000 hectares which in 1998 reached or 2.4 million hectares. The rice production during this period increased from 737,000 to 4.6 million tonne. Thus area increased by 3 times, but the production increased by 6 times. Although, increased area contributed to increased production but significant increase in per acre yield was brought about by the development of high yielding varieties, improved agronomic practices supported with fertilizers and plant protection measures.
To improve further the per acre yield and overall rice production, some suggestions are given below:
1. Reclamation of Saline Alkaline Soils: Pakistan is located in semi-arid region where the evaporation of subsoil water bring up the salts to the soil surface. Therefore rescuing the soils from the ill-effects of salts remain a continuous process and the already salt-ridden areas need special reclamation measures by using good quality irrigation water and soil amendments such as gypsum and sulfuric acid. The government help is solicited in making available the gypsum at cheaper price affordable by the growers.
