India Rice Breeder Cooks Up Non-Aromatic Kerfuffle Over Pakistan’s Basmati Export Varieties

Last month, the head of a leading agricultural research institute based in Delhi expressed his concern in public about Pakistan growing for export—in his view—India-developed basmati rice varieties. The Indian Express amplified his apprehensions. The former president of the All-India Rice Exporters Association said the association wrote to the Commerce Ministry about the development.

This being election time, Congress Party’s General Secretary in-charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, did not miss the chance to skewer the government. “The Modi Sarkar has been sleeping at the wheels,” he charged. “Protected Indian Basmati varieties are being illegally grown in Pakistan and sold on the global market. Unfortunately, the Modi Sarkar is doing nothing to protect the interests of our farmers, breeders and exporters,” he wrote in a post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

AK Singh, director, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, did not perhaps expect his comments to kick-up a political fuss. He declined to elaborate when contacted. Apeda, the Agricultural Export Promotion and Development Agency, directed this correspondent to Singh, in reply to an email. Apeda has the mandate to promote exports of basmati by ensuring farmers and exporters adhere to protocols of cultivation and maintain quality standards. It is also the custodian of Indian basmati’s Geographical Indication tag that prohibits other aromatic rice varieties from being passed off as basmati, which is rice with a defined set of attributes like length and breadth ratio and elongation on cooking, unique to the Gangetic plain and grown in seven states at the foothills of the Himalayas.

Singh’s apprehensions were triggered by Pakistani YouTube videos where the properties and cultivation practices of three basmati varieties resistant to neck blast and bacterial leaf blight diseases are discussed. His institute had released them for commercial cultivation in 2021. These are versions of popular IARI varieties; PB (Pusa Basmati) 6, PB 1121 and PB 1509—Pusa being the IARI campus in New Delhi to where it moved in 1936 from its location of that name in Bihar, after an earthquake.

India has notified 45 basmati varieties. But about 97% of the basmati area last year was planted with IARI varieties. IARI is possessive of them and proud of its contribution to the Indian economy. In 2022-23, India exported 4.56 million tonnes of basmati worth $4.8 billion.

Indian alarm over Pakistan allegedly growing and exporting Indian basmati varieties seems premature. Pakistan exported nearly six lakh tonnes of basmati last year or 13% of India’s overseas sales of the rice, valued at $650 million. The Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan lists 1121 as one of many basmati varieties on its website. An online seller in Germany mentions Kainaat 1121 as “made according to traditional craftsmanship in Pakistan.” Among the many basmati brands being sold on the online marketplace Amazon in the United Arab Emirates, one can find brands like Azmat 1121 “Pakistan Basmati Sella Rice.” Mahmood Sella Basmati Rice 1121 also states it is from Pakistan. Afrah 1121 basmati is coy about its origin, stating that it is “produced in South Asia.” But most of the basmati brands on Amazon.ae, including Indian ones, don’t mention the variety.

In its application to the European Commission for grant of GI status to its basmati, Pakistan has listed 24 varieties. PK 1121 aromatic is just one of them. It is attributed to the Rice Research Institute, Kala Shah Kaku, near Lahore, and was approved in 2013. The application was published in the official journal of the EC last December. GI is given to natural products on which specific environmental contexts confer unique characteristics. It enhances their marketability and enables them to fetch a better price.

IARI released PB 1121 in 2005, and an amended version in 2008. Pakistani YouTube commentators also discuss the cultivation of Kisan Basmati 1509. PB 1509 was released in India is 2013. Pakistanis visiting India may have taken the seeds of these varieties with them, said Vijay Setia, former president of AIBEA.

Though IARI’s varieties have been approved under the Seeds Act and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, both are territorial laws that do not apply outside India. The PPVFR Act gives farmers wide latitude. It allows them to save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share and even sell seeds of protected varieties, provided they are not sold packaged and branded. To act against Pakistani farmers violating its intellectual property, IARI must register its seeds in Pakistan. That will help farmers in that country obtain IARI seed legitimately. But IARI’s purpose is to prevent Pakistani farmers from growing its varieties for export and competing with Indian produce.

An email sent to Mohammad Ijaz, RRI’s director, did not elicit a reply. But Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper, quoted him as saying that “The claim is completely preposterous and merely propaganda. It has no leg to stand on.” According to the daily, Ijaz said the DNA of PK 1121 aromatic and Kisan Basmati 1509 are different from IARI varieties. “I believe the rapid growth in rice exports from Pakistan prompted the IARI director to make such wild, baseless allegations,” he told the newspaper.

India exports have held their ground despite certain unfavourable developments. The EU, which is one of two big markets for Indian basmati, reduced the acceptable residue level of a commonly used fungicide (Tricyclazole) from 1 mg per kg of basmati to 1 mg per 100 kg from January 2018, forcing farmers to use safer, costlier and often, patented molecules to meet the new standard. Yet, India’s exports to the region have risen from 1.12 lakh tonnes in 2018-19 to 1.53 lakh tonnes last year, even though the Pakistani rupee is three times cheaper than the Indian rupee.

Pakistani exports of basmati to the EU and UK comprise mainly of a variety called Super Basmati. The share of this brown, unpolished variety in its exports is now 85%. Pakistan approved the variety in 1996.

India’s basmati has near monopoly in West Asian countries. Its exports have averaged about 1.5 lakh tonnes a year. Consumers there prefer parboiled to raw basmati. But India’s advantage might erode when Pakistan’s exporters invest in parboiling technology, which is freely available.

Historically, basmati rice improvement began at the Kalu Shah Kaku RRI in the erstwhile Punjab province. The development of Basmati 370 in 1933 was a successful example of pure line breeding, credited to the breeding pioneer—Sardar Mohammad Khan.

But over the years, Pakistan’s crop research has suffered due to lack of investment and scientific personnel. A 2018 study for the Pakistan government by the Asian Development Bank said “the country is effectively riding on research done elsewhere and has limited influence on international markets and consumer demands.”

The study said Pakistan inherited good rice varieties and improved upon them. But latterly it has not made significant progress in getting the market to adopt its new commercial varieties because the research done on basmati in Pakistan is deficient, especially compared to the work done by other countries (which could only mean India, its only competitor). Pakistan’s basmati production is challenged by factors like low yields, poor handling, old varieties, changing environment and diseases, it said.

Meanwhile, India and Pakistan are jousting to get GI status for their basmati varieties in the EU. In 2008, they set up a joint working group. Indian officials say it was agreed that recognition would be sought for basmati grown in 17 districts of Pakistan and seven states of India. But that initiative fizzled out after the Mumbai terror attacks in November that year. India, meanwhile, enacted its GI law and got domestic GI recognition for its basmati grown in three districts of the erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir, 30 districts of western Uttar Pradesh and all districts of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. In 2018, it petitioned the EC for GI status. But Pakistan opposed it, even though India did not claim exclusivity.

Last December, EC published Pakistan’s application for basmati GI. The application listed basmati grown in 32 districts of its Punjab province, seven of Sindh, three of Khyber Paktunkhwha, three of Baluchistan and three of Pak-administered Kashmir as eligible. India is not only opposed to the wider area sought to be covered, but also the inclusion of the districts of Pakistan Kashmir which it considers as its own.

Pakistan also has a grievance against India. In 2006, the commerce ministry permitted exports of basmati and other rice varieties under the variety or trade name ‘Super Basmati.’ A private Pakistan company contested that notification in the Delhi High Court, but the suit was dismissed as the party did not pursue it.

Meanwhile, basmati is also grown in Madhya Pradesh, which does not have GI status. Pakistan is sure to rake this up if there is a bilateral dispute.