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Oman mulling

ban on

Pak vegetables

ISLAMABAD: Oman government is considering slapping a ban on Pakistan vegetable exports after finding that a Pakistan shipment of onions earlier carried higher percentage of residues of pesticides.

The warning came from the Pakistan embassy in Muscat that has written to the Government of Pakistan saying: "this embassy has come to know that the concerned Omani authorities have detected higher percentage of the residues of pesticides in Pakistani onions".

However, the head of Chancery Safdar Hayat in his letter No 7(1) 99-Com dated February 2 said, the Omanese government had yet to take a final decision.

In his letter addressed to the deputy director Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), the official has warned the EPB authorities that "it is feared that they (Omani authorities) may impose some kind of restrictions on the import of vegetables with high pesticide residues from Pakistan."

The embassy official said the aftermath of the finding may have a negative impact on our export to Oman.

Sources said the official has further told EBP that "your are requested to please convey the same (report) to the authorities concerned in Pakistan with the advice to exercise care in the future".

Meanwhile, official sources in EPB told Fortuna that EBP Director S.M. Ismail has contacted the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) with the request that the authorities advise vegetables and onion growers to exercise care in the future.

However, sources said this kind of usual official correspondence between two government institutions will yield little results as the Agriculture Ministry exercises little or no influence over growers in different parts of the country and who use pesticides indiscriminately to get good production to meet their input cost. Currently, sources said the onion growers are facing serious problem in disposing off their produce at a reasonable price in the local market Ñ thanks to a second bumper onion crop on the back of one last year.

To a question, sources said the government needed to launch a meaningful programme to educate the illiterate growers about the negative effects of unchecked use of pesticides on vegetable crops in local environment.ÑFortuna