BEIJING   -  China will increase investment in the Pak-China contract farm­ing sesame project and has the plan to import at least 5,000 tonnes of sesame from Paki­stan this year, Project Manager, Xi Jianlong said. “In 2023, we imported 400 tonnes of sesame from Pakistan to China, and this year, we plan to import at least 5,000 tons of sesame,” he said in an interview.

At the end of 2023, the first batch of sesame from the project was shipped to China, signalling a promising year for sesame ex­ports. Sesame, a traditional crop in Pakistan, has faced challenges such as low market demand and limited cultivation scale. Rec­ognising China’s increasing de­mand for sesame, the Sino-Pak Agricultural Cooperation and Exchange Centre, led by China Machinery Engineering Cor­poration (CMEC), collaborated with Pakistani farmers to estab­lish contract farming initiatives. China’s sesame import volume has remained stable at approxi­mately 1 million tonnes over the past three years. Pakistan’s sesa­me holds the advantage of being among the first to enter the mar­ket in the northern hemisphere every year, and its proximity to China ensures a short shipping time of only ten to fifteen days by sea, said Xi Jianlong.

The project was started in 2022. After two years of trials, the centre has made significant progress in seed selection and industrial models. In 2023, the cultivation area surpassed 600 acres, indicating promising po­tential for sesame production.

When I surveyed Pakistan in 2018, the sesame cultivation area was only 200,000 acres. By 2023, it had increased to 1 million acres, highlighted Xi Jianlong, emphasising the im­pressive growth in sesame cul­tivation in Pakistan.

We also provide support in terms of cultivation resources and technical training for lo­cal farmers, and their yield per acre has almost doubled com­pared to 2018.

To further enhance effi­ciency in sesame production, the centre plans to introduce advanced sesame harvesting machinery and sorting equip­ment from China.

Xi Jianlong stated, “We are currently exploring collabora­tions with agricultural machin­ery companies and plan to in­troduce combined harvesting and sowing machines, along­with drone-assisted pesticide spraying, to facilitate farm management in Pakistan.”