KARACHI - The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) has invited the attention of the Ministry of Commerce and also Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) to the repercussions of government intervention in rice trade and urged the government to offer crutches to the rice trade rather indulge in rice trade itself as it has created an extremely uncertain situation for doing business by all segments of rice trade from farm to exports. President UNISAME, Zulfiqar Thaver said the government is making matters worst by procuring rice from selected mills only and this partial approach has put the entire rice trade in turmoil as the growers were not being properly satisfied. He said the small and medium sized farmers were deceived by false promises and their paddy remained unsold as PASSCO was buying only from the influential and the winter rains damaged their paddy which they collected and anticipated that PASSCO would buy from them as announced. He regretted that every year we are making the same mistakes and not learning from our past and the worst sufferers are the SMEs who are involved in farming, milling, processing, trading and exporting. Mehboob Ahmed Paracha member mentor committee of UNISAME enumerated the shortcomings of the government intervention and said that the government efforts have failed to provide result-oriented support to the farmers. He said the government has failed to give clear rice export policy and is hiding its card that is why the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) is buying from opportunist non-trade sellers. Since denationalisation, the rice exporters have brought the rice trade to its glory in 19 years and now all of a sudden there is no declared policy by the government for state intervention in the sector which was performing best comparing to all contemporaries export oriented sectors. Rice Industry is located in rural areas and has been established without spending foreign exchange and high loans from the banks. Rice re-processing Mill exporting one container a day provides jobs for about 100 families and by state intervention there would be countrywide unemployment. He concluded that to meet Pakistan's export target in current recession when the export demand for other items will fall, food will continue to export and government should cash this opportunity and make Pakistan the major source of food supply in the world.