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Pakistan hurt badly by floods, looking to India for vegetables
Pakistan is likely to import vegetables from India due to a shortage caused by devastating rains and floods in Sindh, one of the country's main agricultural regions, a leading trader has said.
Pakistan is likely to import vegetables from India due to a shortage caused by devastating rains and floods in Sindh, one of the country's main agricultural regions, a leading trader has said.
"The country is likely to import vegetables from India in October, like last year, when floods had destroyed vast swathes of farmland," said Haji Shah Jehan, the President of the Welfare Association of Wholesale Vegetable Markets in Karachi.
Vegetable and fruit supplies have dropped by 75% and prices have shot up by nearly 100 per cent in the wholesale market due to heavy monsoon rainfall and flooding, he said.
"The natural calamity has destroyed the agricultural supply chain," Shah Jehan told The News daily.
About 800 to 1,000 trucks of fruits and vegetables arrive at the Karachi wholesale market every day, but after the rains began, the number dropped to 200 to 250 trucks.
The situation will become clearer in a week or two when floodwaters recede in the vegetable-growing districts of Sindh, he said.
Prices of vegetables were affected more than fruit, as supplies from the Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces were unaffected.
Vegetables are mostly grown in Sindh, which was badly hit by the recent rains.
