Profitable business of foreign seed companies is on the rise, as local farmers are on average sowing foreign seed of around 7.5 kg per acre, leading to import of more than 4,000 metric ton of hybrid rice seeds every year in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, several companies remain engaged in sale of hybrid rice or GM seeds with claims that these would boost the production manifold. Market sources said that during 2012, around 50 new seed companies were registered, making the total number of registered seed companies in country 775, including 4 public sector and 5 multinational companies. In Pakistan, mostly the seeds marketed by the Chinese companies are used by the local farmers.

Hybrid rice has been promoted across Asia by the multinationals along with the Chinese companies as a magic bullet that can end the problem of declining output in the world’s rice farms.According to Reap vice chairman, 11 districts of Sindh and 3 districts of Balochistan is cultivating hybrid rice on vast tracts. Multan, Sadiqabad, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bhawalpur are places in Punjab where these seeds are widely used.He observed that IRRI-6, being used in the country, has now almost been degenerated.

Similarly, Rice Research Institute, Kala Shah Kaku and Rice Research Institute Dokri have lost their utility after having failed to develop new technologies. It is the private sector alone, it argues, that the government should encourage to use new rice technologies in the country, especially hybrid rice. He said that hybrids are produced by crossing two inbred, genetically fixed, varieties of a particular crop. Hybrids are special because they express what is called hybrid vigour.

The idea is that if you cross two parents which are genetically distant from each other, the offspring will be ‘superior’, particularly in terms of yield.In 2000, several Asian countries switched over to this technology to meet the growing domestic demand and also UN millennium goals of halving poverty but with little success. In fact by 2005, the area devoted to GM rice started to decline because it was failing to produce the promised results and farmers were getting disillusioned and opting out of it.

He elaborated the popularity of hybrid rice in the country because its cultivation is giving increased yield per acre that creates exportable surplus. The country will export around 3.4 million ton of rice in 2012-13, showing a decline of over 15 per cent from the targeted 4 million ton export of rice. Exporters said that, at present, hybrid rice is cultivated on an area of approximately 500,000 acres in the country.

It is nearly one-fifth of the total area under rice cultivation.According to the Economic Survey 2011-12, the sown area for rice in the year was 2.57 million hectares which is 9 percent more than the previous year’s 2.4 million hectares. The production of the crop in 2011-12 was estimated to be 6.16 million ton, 27.7 percent more than what was produced a year ago. This surge in output was possible due to increase in the area brought under cultivation.