Declining shipments of rice, sesame, potatoes, mangoes and citrus, coupled with repeated phytosanitary alerts in key markets, point to a deeper weakness in the country’s plant quarantine and food-safety regime.

Ghulam Abbas

Pakistan’s agricultural export problem is no longer confined to production costs, international prices or weak market demand. A growing body of export data and phytosanitary alerts suggests that weaknesses in the country’s regulatory and plant-protection system are increasingly becoming a constraint on access to high-end international markets.

The warning signs are visible across several major export crops. As per available data, Pakistan’s rice exports to European Union member states fell from 492,239 tonnes in 2023 to 309,704 tonnes in 2025, a decline of more than 37%. Exports stood at 486,445 tonnes in 2024. The decline continued in 2026, with shipments during the first seven months reaching 231,675 tonnes, compared with 287,139 tonnes during the same period in 2024.

The deterioration is not limited to rice. Sesame exports dropped from 269,771 tonnes in 2023 to 169,076 tonnes in 2025, a decline of 37.3%. Potato exports fell by 52.6% year-on-year in 2026, from 884,863 tonnes in 2025 to 419,547 tonnes.

Mango exports declined from 106,634 tonnes in 2024 to 94,621 tonnes in 2025 and similar trend is being observed in 2026 where PFVA has  already fixed export target at 80000 tons, while citrus shipments fell from 259,566 tonnes in 2023 to 181,784 tonnes in 2025.

Individually, these declines may have different causes. Taken together, however, they raise a broader question: Is Pakistan’s agricultural export infrastructure keeping pace with the increasingly stringent sanitary and phytosanitary requirements of international markets?

When fewer interceptions do not necessarily mean fewer problems

Rice provides perhaps the clearest indication of the problem. European Union border-alert data show repeated interceptions of Pakistani rice consignments over the past several years showing no technical corrective has been taken on the part of provincial agriculture Department and DPP/NAFSA.

Published Date: September 14, 2026