Interest in cultivating Chinese chilli growing

A red chilli farming project launched under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework will help Pakistan’s agriculture sector, experts said.

Launched in 2013, CPEC is a corridor linking Pakistan’s Gwadar Port with Kashgar in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, which highlights energy, transport and industrial cooperation in the first phase, while the new phase expands to the areas of agriculture, livelihood, etc.

Echoing CPEC’s cooperation in agriculture, China Machinery Engineering Corporation and Sichuan Litong Food Group have established a company and carried out a red chilli contract farming project in 2021. One of the six model farms of the project is in Multan. Muhammad Sajjad’s nursery is among thousands of acres of model farms where the company teamed up with locals for contract farming of Chinese chilli varieties, with an aim to export the crop back to China after harvest and earn foreign exchange for Pakistan. Talking to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Muhammad Adnan, Executive Manager of the company, said that local farmers’ interest in cultivating Chinese chilli is increasing due to its better yield and strong resistance to diseases.

“Local chilli is highly vulnerable to diseases and farmers are hesitant to grow it, but the Chinese varieties are robust, easy to pick and are sold at a higher price directly to Chinese companies from farms, without any involvement of middleman, making it highly popular among local farmers,” he added.

In a conversation, Zhao Jianhua, a Chinese agronomist of the company with 27 years of experience in chilli cultivation, said he has trained over 20 Pakistani agricultural technicians in the past years, who can help the farms independently.

“We are not only bringing cultivation technology to local farmers but also working together with Pakistani agronomists to promote the development of the chilli industry by combining technology with the advantages of both Chinese and Pakistani chilli varieties,” he added.

Muhammad Irfan Ahmad, Assistant Executive Manager of the company, said that many techniques like nurturing plants inside the tunnel, modern ways of transplantation, and providing sufficient nutrients to the crops are some of the methods that local farmers are using instead of relying on primitive methods.