Agriculture: The growing threat of double-rice cropping

Rice is Pakistan’s second-largest crop after wheat and the country’s largest agricultural export commodity. For decades, the Punjab government consistently enforced a ban on raising rice nurseries before May 20 under the Punjab Agricultural Pests Ordinance, 1959, and its 1960 Rules. Its violation was treated as a cognizable offence. In recent years, however, the emergence of short-duration basmati