The recent restructuring of Pakistan’s agricultural regulatory framework under the National Agri-Trade and Food Safety Authority (NAFSA) Ordinance 2025 has created widespread confusion, institutional uncertainty, and serious operational disruptions.

Intended as a reform to modernize and streamline food safety and agri-trade functions, the implementation of this ordinance — particularly the dissolution of core functions of the Department of Plant Protection (DPP) — has proven technically inconsistent and strategically misaligned.

For decades, the DPP functioned as Pakistan’s National Plant Protection Organisation (NPPO) under the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and FAO. It was not merely a plant quarantine body — it managed pesticide regulation, led the country’s desert locust control program, conducted aerial pest control operations, and maintained critical international partnerships with bodies like the FAO and regional surveillance networks, including neighbor countries.

However, the new NAFSA framework has thrown the future of these vital functions into uncertainty. The situation worsened on July 3, 2025, when the Federal Secretary of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) approved the transfer of 282 - technical and supporting regular staff members (BPS 01 to 19)—key to desert locust operations—to the federal government’s Establishment Division’s surplus pool. This move effectively dismantles nearly half of DPP’s core team and put the last nail in its coffin. Alarmingly, there’s no clarity on whether more staff will be added to this list in subsequent phases or not.

Adding to the contradiction, the same ministry/department has reportedly hired 50–100 contract entomologists under the guise of a desert locust project—only to reassign them to plant........

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