India and Pakistan are the world’s largest producers in basmati rice. The two countries claim exclusive rights on the name “Basmati”. They want to limit the label to cultivated rice in specific regions. This would allow producers to sell it at higher prices.
EU negotiators who are in New Delhi to seal a trade agreement are invited to accept the right of India to use the basmati designation, officials said at FT. “But that would cause a diplomatic flaw with Islamabad, so Brussels plays for time,” said an official.
India has waited seven years that its application to protect the term on the EU market was recognized and is “increasingly impatient”, according to FT.
In 2023, Pakistan filed its own request for the definition of the rice production area and methods, including four districts of the cashmere occupied by Pakistan. EU officials note that the approval of the complaint of Pakistan would de facto imply the recognition of his claim to sovereignty on these lands, which would indicate New Delhi.
For India and Pakistan, the grain has long been a symbol of national pride. It is mainly cultivated in historic Punjab paddies, the Breadbasket region now divided between the two countries. In the early 2000s, Pakistan supported an Indian effort to overthrow patents for Basmati rice held by the Société du Texas Ricetec, that the two powers of South Asia at the time accused of having committed a “biopiracie”. They also launched working groups to submit a joint EU request. But the hope that the two countries could work together were destroyed when terrorists supported by Pakistani intelligence killed more than 100 people in Mumbai at the end of 2008.
“The attacks poisoned the will of the two parties to collaborate, even on questions of mutual economic interest. In 2018, India made a single property request, ”according to FT.
New Delhi is looking for the exclusive property of Basmati Rice to protect the heritage and the authenticity of cereals, strengthening the position of the world trade in India. This decision can affect Pakistani exporters, who also market their rice under the Basmati label.
In 2024-25, India had exported Basmati rice worth 6,374 crores from ₹ to Iran, which represented 12.6% of total Basmati exports in India in 2024-25.
“The procedures for Indian and Pakistani demands are in parallel,” the EU delegation in Pakistan said in a statement.
The Indian Minister of Commerce, Piyush Goyal, said on Friday, following a visit to an EU commercial delegation that his country worked with block to finalize a free trade agreement that would benefit businesses and consumers on both sides ”.
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