Experts stress need for reducing cotton import regulatory procedures

According to Dawn, specialists in seed and crop research argued in Lahore on Wednesday that approval for imported cotton varieties, which currently takes seven years, should fall to 12-24 months. They said long regulatory procedures are holding back access to high-yielding germplasm. They want an urgent review to cut unnecessary stages and run compatible trials in parallel, without weakening biosecurity and biosafety safeguards.

Today the route takes about seven years: a year of biosecurity screening, two of biosafety tests, a year of company trials, two of National Uniform Yield Trials and a final year of sign-off. Industry proposes that laboratory checks for specified seed-borne diseases could replace the six-month quarantine screening, bringing that stage down to 15 days, while biosafety and yield trials run together for one season. Shahzad Ali Malik, CEO of Guard Agricultural Research & Services, said a fast-track route could let seed companies bring promising imported varieties and hybrids in by 2028, subject to regulatory approval.

Any change would require revising the Plant Quarantine Rules, 2019, and coordination among several regulators, including the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee. Pest risk analysis, or PRA, was flagged as a major bottleneck, and the Department of Plant Protection has begun such arrangements with 11 cotton-producing countries. Progress with China is considered particularly important, and 24 identified varieties from Ethiopia, Greece and China fall within a target of 25 to 50.