SARGODHA: Sargodha is known for cultivating the most delicious citrus, commonly known as kinno. But the fruit, though famous worldwide for its taste, look and juice, is not a profitable harvest for growers due to various reasons, Dawn has learnt.

There are more than 30 kinno grading and vexing factories in the district, mostly running on loans and defaulting on payments.

Why does this nice juicy fruit not excite you so much? Ask this question to a grower and he will blame the government, agriculture experts and middlemen for the downfall of harvest and its exports.

“Of the targeted exports of 300,000 tons, Pakistan manages to export only 100,000 tons a year,” said M Afzal, a kinno exporter.

He accused the government of neglecting the agriculture department and failing to reach the export targets despite having the potential to do so. He said that Pakistani kinno could not get the desired reception in the international market and was graded B.

He said Indonesia, China and Turkey had successfully encountered the taste of Pakistani kinno and flooded their product in the international market. Moreover, the attack of pest also devalued the fruit in the overseas market.

A government official said reasons varied from the poor orchard management to a lack of expertise in crop grading, variety selection and pruning practices.

He said growers hardly practiced modern orchard management practices; they did not have adequate knowledge of crop stages and variety selections. “Farmers mostly adopt the curative approach instead of the preventive approach; curative measures are mostly ineffective and a waste of resources,” he added.

He said most of the farmers did not opt for modern pruning practices in their orchards as pruning controlled disease and insect control and also enhanced the fruit quality. He said farmers were not fully aware of the importance of balanced crop nutrition.

“They normally depend upon a certain type of macro nutrients ignoring micro nutrients. They should know that both macro and micro nutrients are essential for a good quality crop,” he said.

Agri officials suggest that factory owners pay money to their contracted farmers in advance for a better cash flow with the farmers and also for the timely application of inputs and orchard practices.

They say the market window for kinno is limited; the public and private sectors must explore new destinations for export.

There should be a close coordination among farmers, processors, exporters and research institutes for better information flow and technology transfer.

SEEDLESS KINNO: The production and export of seedless kinno is likely to begin from the next year by the Agriculture Institute of the University of Sargodha, says Vice-Chancellor Dr Muhammad Akram Chaudhry.

A ‘Citrus Conference-2013’ was held at the University of Sargodha last year to discuss means to boost the harvest and its export.

Dr Chaudhry said these seedless kinno would be disease-free and 12,000 plants of the citrus variety would be provided to growers.

STORAGE ISSUES: There is a shortage of proper warehouses to store the kinno crop. The existing storage systems lack facilities as fruits and vegetables are kept at the same temperatures under one roof, which reduces the shelf-life of several fruits.

A farm producer said that initiatives were taken to encourage farmers to utilise the proper techniques of picking and packing. He stressed the need to develop proper storage facility for kinno crops.

Kinno has become one of the major export items in the fruit group. The fruit’s growns primarily in plains of Punjab, including Sargodha and Toba Tek Singh. But the share of Pakistan’s citrus in the world market is as low as 1.4 pc. Pakistan is ranked the 13th largest citrus producer in the world with production of 2.1 million tons of citrus as claimed by the government.

Growers are disappointed with the situation as during this season they suffered losses due to pest attack and cancellation of export orders, said Chaudhry Hamid Saleem Warraich, president of the Kinno Growers’ Association. Farmers also held rallies in the district demanding compensatory measures by the government.

Kinno exporters are also not optimistic about the better future. They said they had supplied the fruit to traders in Karachi in the last season and they had yet to recover their money from them. Mr Afzal said that exporters of Karachi to whom they supplied kinno owed Rs400 million to the growers of exporters of Bhalwal. He said Karachi traders had dumped and wasted the produce for the reasons best known to them.